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Jesse Mack Butler faced nearly a dozen charges related to the s3xual assault of two teenage girls he dated, and he was convicted of several of them.

He pleaded no contest and faced nearly 80 years in prison for the crimes, until the court allowed him to plead as a youthful offender and reduced his sentence to no jail time, community service, curfew, and counseling. And oh, no social media. 

If he complies until his 19th birthday, his record is wiped clean, he doesn’t have to register as a sex offender, and nobody would be none the wiser, not even the girls in Butler’s hometown of Stillwater, Oklahoma.

That’s not much of a punishment for the severity of his crimes and the lifetime of trauma the girls will carry. And Butler isn’t even the only s3xual offender who has benefited from the court’s leniency and disregard for current and future victims.

Two other men Seth Swaim, a teacher busted for s3xting a 13-year-old girl, and Brock Turner, a college athlete caught assaulting a drunk, unconscious woman behind a dumpster, also got sweetheart sentencing deals. 

What all these cases seem to have in common is privilege, enabling parents, and an above-the-law attitude.

Join us for a detailed discussion of these headline making cases on the latest episode of Gulf Coast Confidential, “Predators gonna prey, when judges seem to play, Brock Turner, Jesse Mack Butler, Seth Swaim.”

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