Probation for sexual assault?
On Wednesday, 19-year-old Armin Ruzbie pleaded guilty to assault and battery on a former classmate and was sentenced to four years of probation. Apparently, in 2007, Ruzbie entered the 16-year-old male classmate’s room with three friends, pulled his pants down, and sexually assaulted him while yelling at him and videotaping the assault. If he violates his probation, he will face the more serious charge of indecent assault and battery.
Is it just me, or does that sentence not seem harsh enough?
I mean, Clark Rockefeller was sentenced to 4-5 years in jail for kidnapping his daughter, whom he did not hurt, and causing minor injuries to a social worker. Alexander Pring-Wilson got two years in jail for killing someone in self-defense. People have gone to jail for possessing guns without a license, doing drugs, stealing, and drunk driving. Isn’t sexual assault worse than these things?
Although Ruzbie apologized for the crime and might have become a better person in the years since, what he did was extremely wrong and he deserves to be punished for it. His defense lawyer called the assault a “one minute act of adolescent stupidity.” When I think of stupid things that teenagers sometimes do, I think of silly fashions, cutting class, smoking, driving too fast…but deciding to basically rape a person who is sitting in his room and minding his own business is far beyond stupidity. Anyone who does that deserves a more severe punishment than probation.