While admitting that he "deserved to be chastised" for his comments about the teenage rape victim who later committed suicide in Montana, District Judge Todd Baugh said he stood by his decision to send Billings Senior High School teacher Stacey Rambold for 30 days, the Associated Press reported.
The statement Baugh regretted saying was that the girl was "older than her chronological age," saying he had as much control of the situation as the teacher who raped her.
"I don't know how to pass that off. I'm saying I'm sorry and it's not who I am. I deserve to be chastised. I apologize for that," Baugh said.
Rambold was charged in October 2008 with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent after authorities alleged he had an ongoing sexual relationship with Cherice Moralez, which began the previous year when she was 14-years-old.
Moralez committed suicide two years later while the case was still pending. Her mother Auleia Hanlon indicated that her daughter's relationship with Rambold was a "major factor behind it."
State law stipulates that children young than 16 cannot consent to sex.
Rambold was given the chance to dismiss the charges leveled against if he completed a sexual offender treatment program, but he was kicked out of it after having unsupervised visits with minors who were family members. He also did not tell counselors he was having sex with a woman.
Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year prison term.
"My thought was, given the relatively minor violations in the sex offender treatment program, it didn't seem appropriate to put him in jail, put him in prison" for a longer time. It didn't seem to me that the violations were such that the state should be able to back out of their agreement," Judge Baugh said.
