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Ex-Teacher At Center Of Rape Sentencing Controversy Gets 10 Years In Jail

Stacey Dean Rambold
Montana Department of Corrections
Stacey Dean Rambold

After a long-running controversy over his original punishment, a convicted rapist in Montana was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Friday.

As we've reported, Stacey Dean Rambold was originally sentenced to 30 days in jail for raping one of his 14-year-old students.

District Judge G. Todd Baugh unleashed a firestorm of criticism because of the lenient sentence and for saying the victim, who later committed suicide, "seemed older than her chronological age."

Back in April, the Montana Supreme Court threw out Rambold's sentence because of the judge's comments.

The AP reports:

"Rambold appeared to grimace as the new sentence was read. He was then handcuffed and led away by deputies, pausing briefly to exchange words with family as he exited the courtroom.

"Rambold pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual intercourse without consent in the 2007 incident involving 14-year-old Cherice Moralez, a freshman in his Billings Senior High School business class. She committed suicide in 2010."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.