NY Bus Driver Who Raped 14-Year-Old Gets No Prison Time: Reports

(Michael Schueller/Pixabay)

A former New York school bus driver who admitted to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old who rode on his bus route received his sentence on April 25, according to local reports.

Shane Piche, 25, was sentenced to 10 years of probation, reported WWNY-TV. He won’t do any prison time in the case.

Piche will also have to register as a Level 1 sex offender, it was reported. According to the Watertown Daily Times, a Level 1 offender is someone who is considered to be low risk and isn’t included in online sex offender databases.

Three orders of protection were issued for him, and he was ordered not to be alone with anyone under the age of 17, it was reported.

In February, he pleaded guilty to third-degree rape.

“He'll be a felon for the rest of his life. He’s on the sex offender registry for a long time. Maybe not the rest of his life because of the level but this isn’t something that didn’t cause him pain and this isn’t something that didn’t have consequences,” said Eric Swartz, who served as Piche’s defense attorney.

The mother of the unnamed victim issued a statement, saying that she wishes Piche “would have received time in jail for the harm he caused to my child.”

“He took something from my daughter she will never get back and has caused her to struggle with depression and anxiety,” he continued.

The Watertown Daily Times reported that Judge James P. McClusky noted that he had no prior arrests. He said there was also only one victim.

Police said he met the 14-year-old through his job as a bus driver. The incident took place at his residence in Ridge Road.

Piche also was charged with endangering the welfare of a child by providing her with alcohol, according to the Daily Times.

A map photo shows Watertown, New York (Google Maps)

Swartz added that Piche, who had to pay $375 in fees and surcharges, no longer works at the bus company, the Daily Times reported, adding that he had to pay a $1,000 special sex offender registration fee.

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

A police car in a file photo. (Mira Oberman/AFP/Getty Images)

“From 1993 to 2017, the rate of violent victimization declined 74 percent, from 79.8 to 20.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older,” the U.S. Department of Justice stated.

Both studies are based on data up to and including 2017, the most recent year for which complete figures are available.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.