There is a bizarre and damning pattern, in which the court system has been less severe while sentencing sex offenders that are women. (Credit: the incomparable Broadly.)Take, as a recent example, the case of ex-Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck, 48, who was sentenced today to attend work-release detention center every other weekend and restitution of $10,650 for the rape of a 15-year-old boy. Though she was arrested in November for third-degree rape, her charges were dropped to a fourth-degree sentencing in June after a plea deal. Fourth-degree rape, an offense with a maximum 15-year imprisonment but no mandatory minimum, sits at the lower end of the spectrum of a crime that typically calls for a minimum of 1-15 years in prison."I was the adult, and I'm sorry," Shattuck said, according to USA Today. "I never should have had the conversation with someone else's son and I'm sorry … I will spend the rest of my life making this right."In addition to the rape charges, Shattuck was charged with selling alcohol to minors and unlawful sexual contact. According to police, Shattuck had performed oral sex on the boy over Labor Day at a summer house in Bethany Beach, Delaware.What often gets left out of the picture in these cases is the trauma that can set into the male victims and their families."What she did to my son is heinous," the mother said, according to USA Today. "Any adult who rapes a child deserves to be in prison. Please hold her accountable.""At the end of the day, there's nothing that we can do to take this pain away from him," said the boy's father, according to the New York Daily News.
Advertisement