Former police officer Michael Pena was sentenced to 75 years in prison for sexually assaulting a then-25-year-old school teacher at gunpoint while off-duty in Manhattan in August 2011. Less than two years later, Pena is trying to get his sentence significantly reduced, based on the argument that raping someone is not the worst thing, ya' know. "[Pena] was punished more harshly than Al Qaeda terrorists, vicious killers, kingpin narcotics offenders, violent gangsters and racketeers," wrote Pena's lawyer, Ephraim Savitt.
Savitt writes that the sentence was "politically motivated and media-intensified vengeance," complaining that a first-time offender was given "three times the mandatory minimum sentence for murder." He had the balls to call the sentence an "injustice." Savitt had asked the judge for a 10-year-sentence for his client, and at most 15 to 20 years. “Even in cases of rape by serial rapists, or of brutal thugs that physically beat and slash their victims, punishment has been generally considerably lower than Pena’s sentence,” Savitt wrote.
Legal experts tell the News that Savitt has a shot at his appeal: Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers “is a very well-respected judge, and it’s a horrible crime, but 75 to life is a brute of a sentence," explained Ed Hayes.
Carruthers had added on 10 more years to Pena's sentence after the verdict, to be served concurrently with the other 75 years. He explained that was to spare the victim: "This sentence in no way reflects the seriousness or the grievous nature of his crimes...[it was] for one reason and for one reason only. That is to spare the victim from having to confront her attacker again."
The initial jury had a mistrial over the rape charges, in spite of victim and witness testimony, as well as testimony from a disgusted arresting officer. Lydia Cuomo, the woman who was raped by Pena, came forward a year after the trial to convince Albany to put anal and oral penetration into the New York State definition of rape.
The News asked her how she felt about his current appeal: "Seventy-five years? I still have my entire life with this and I did nothing to ask for it."
