Last week, Kentucky-based hacker Deric Lostutter was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in hacking a website and leaking videos that brought the Steubenville rape case onto the national stage. Back in 2013, we knew Lostutter faced more jail time (10 years) than the actual rapists did. Now it turns out he actually will be getting a harsher punishment than the teenage football-playing rapists. From the Lexington Herald Leader:
Deric Lostutter, the computer hacker known online as “KYAnonymous,” was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for his role in illegally accessing a computer and getting involved in a notorious 2012 rape case in Steubenville, Ohio.
Lostutter, 29, had pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to hack a website associated with Steubenville High School athletics and to a second charge of lying to an FBI agent who was investigating the breach.
Two years was the maximum allowed for the charges he pleaded guilty to. Compare this to what happened with the Steubenville rapists. From the New York Times:
One of the football players, Trent Mays, 17, who had been a quarterback, was sentenced to serve at least two years in the state juvenile system. The other, Ma’lik Richmond, 16, who had played wide receiver, was sentenced to serve at least one year. Both could end up in juvenile jail until they are 21, at the discretion of the State Department of Youth Services.
Mr. Mays’s minimum sentence is twice as long as Mr. Richmond’s because he was found to be delinquent beyond a reasonable doubt — the juvenile equivalent of guilty — not just of rape but also of distributing a nude image of a minor.
So let’s get this straight—Mays only got a sentencing comparable to the hacker because he sent photos of his rape victim who happened to be a minor. I guess they wouldn’t care if she was 18 or older.
Oh, and in 2014, Richmond got his sex offender classification lowered from Tier II (medium), which would require registering his address every six months for the next 20 years years, to Tier I. Now he only has to register his address once a year for 10 years.
How is the criminal “justice” system supposed to be the answer to rape exactly?