Joseph Presley, 23, will only spend one month in jail after pleading guilty to molesting an 8-year-old boy on two separate occasions, while he was babysitting.
The judge in the case, Calvin Holden, initially sentenced Presley to 10 years, but changed his mind, giving him one month in jail and five years of probation instead.
Dee Wempler, Presley’s defense attorney, told Springfield, Missouri’s KSPR 33, “Do we really want to take a boy that’s not institutionalized, that has not been in prison before, and put him in prison with some real sex molesters, and some real rapists? So that he can really learn the trade? Is that what we want?”
Online, quite a few people have drawn comparisons between Presley and Brock Turner, who was released today after serving three months of a six-month sentence for raping an unconscious woman.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/771061429470433280
And once again a judge is soft on what he called a kid! We have to express outrage at this and others!! https://t.co/k75bbNBWam
— Theresa Gonsalves (@theresajoyce) August 31, 2016
Brock Turner's not rare — white convicts often get off easy – NY Daily News https://t.co/ohwNk2B667
— shaq (@ShaqBeChillin) September 2, 2016
Presley pleaded guilty to a Class B felony, which in Missouri carries a maximum 15-year sentence. Child Advocacy Center Executive Director Barbara Brown-Johnson said in response to the verdict, “You have to deal with the child victim in [front] of you, and saying that a perpetrator should get a lesser sentence because of their perpetration, when they’re an adult, that makes no sense whatsoever.”