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Now this is sure to make your stomach turn.

A former high school teacher who was accused of raping his 14-year-old student (who would commit suicide three years later) was convicted and sentenced to just 30 days in jail.

According to Gawker:

Yellowstone County district judge G. Todd Baugh sentenced Stacey Dean Rambold to 15 years but suspended all but 31 days, in part because Judge Baugh said the 14-year-old victim was “older than her chronological age” and “as much in control of the situation” as Rambold.

Back in 2008, Rambold, 54, raped Cherice Morales when she was his student at Billings Senior High School in Billings, Montana. In October, he was charged with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent, but for several years, the case remained pending.

In 2010, Morales killed herself and according to her mother, the relationship with Rambold was a major factor in her suicide. She was just 17-years-old.

In part because Morales’s suicide disrupted their case, the Yellowstone County District Attorney’s office reached an agreement with Rambold delaying prosecution for three years. If Rambold completed a sex offender program during that time, charges would be dismissed. As part of that agreement, Rambold admitted to one of the rape charges, knowing that the admission could be used against him.

Last November, Rambold was expelled from his sex offender program after his supervisor learned “he had been having unsupervised visits with minors and had not informed his counselors that he had been having sexual relations with a woman.” Prosecutors reintroduced the case last December, after learning of Rambold’s dismissal from the program.

Prosecutors were seeking a 20-year sentence. But none of this mattered. Even after Morales’s mother got on the stand and asked the judge to put Rambold behind bars, he agreed with the defense attorney’s argument that he has suffered enough – Rambold lost his job and his wife due to the allegations. For the judge, 31 days would be sufficient.

When the verdict was read aloud, Morales’s mother reportedly screamed out “You people suck!” and ran from the courtroom. Rambold was given credit for the one day in jail he’d already served.

Still convinced the justice system is fair?

SOURCE: Gawker