Anonymous asked this question on 3/5/2000:

How can a man, that was caught exposing himself and with a record for being a pedophile get off with just paying fines. After he exposed himself on several occassions to 2 little girls.?

STB56 gave this response on 3/13/2000:

This question has many possible answers. The first one is that he had a good lawyer. He could have plead guilty to a lesser crime if the prosecutions case was not so good. An example would be they didn't want to make the children go through the lenghty process of a trial that could be more emotionally damaging than the actual incident. It also could be that he was sentenced to a rehabiltation program along with his fines. Another explination is that it could have been a big city, where they are used to much more sever crimes than this, so this is seen as a minor thing or a misdemeanor. There could also be mitigating factors such as he wasn't intentionaly exposing himself to them they were just secondary victims. You also have to remember that we are working with a less than perfect system and mistakes happen. Some people may not get what we see as fair 100% of the time, and there are ways to beat the system. If he convinced the judge that he had enrolled in a rehabilitation facility the judge may be more lenient toward him. So if you are looking for the criminal justice system to provide justice 100% of the time you are mistaken,that simply isn't the case some mistakes happen and some people fall through the cracks, unfortunately, but it is the best we have to work with, so you have to take the good along with the bad. I hope I have answered your question satisfactorily.

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