A 25-year-old school bus driver in Cleveland, Ohio, who raped a teenage girl won’t serve any jail time after pleading guilty to the crime.
Shane Piche, who was a bus driver in Watertown, Ohio, pleaded guilty to rape rather than face trial in February. As a result of his plea, Piche won’t see the inside of a jail cell, and will only be required to serve 10 years probation and register as a sex offender. Piche is also no longer allowed to be alone with anyone aged 17 or younger.
“I wish Shane Piche would have received time in jail for the harm he caused to my child. He took something from my daughter she will never get back and has caused her to struggle with depression and anxiety,” the victim’s mother told local news outlet WNNY.
Piche pleaded guilty to third-degree rape. In Ohio, third-degree felonies typically come with a jail sentence of nine to 60 months in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). Even though Piche won’t serve any prison time, his attorney, Eric Swartz, told local media that the punishment outlined in the plea agreement is still fairly severe.
“He’ll be a felon for the rest of his life. He’s on the sex offender registry for a long time. Maybe not the rest of his life because of the level but this isn’t something that didn’t cause him pain and this isn’t something that didn’t have consequences,” Swartz said.
Swartz isn’t the only convicted sex criminal to get an incredibly lenient sentence in recent years. Last year, Anchorage, Alaska man Justin Schneider got no jail time despite pleading guilty to masturbating on a Native American woman . Despite the nature of the crime, Schneider didn’t even have to register as a sex offender.
In 2016, Brock Turner was convicted of assault with intent to rape an unconscious/intoxicated person in the 2015 case of Emily Doe. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Turner to just six months behind bars, even though he faced up to 14 years in prison. In 2018, Persky became the first judge in California to be recalled in nearly nine decades.