Montana prosecutor seeks 10 years in prison for ex-teacher who raped student

By Laura Zuckerman (Reuters) - A Montana prosecutor recommended to a judge on Wednesday that an ex-teacher from Billings who spent just a month in jail for raping a 14-year-old girl be resentenced to serve 10 years in prison. Stacey Rambold pleaded guilty last year to one count of sexual intercourse without consent tied to the 2007 rape of Cherice Moralez, a high school freshman who killed herself before the rape case could be brought to trial. In a ruling later struck down as unlawfully lenient, a Montana judge sentenced Rambold last year to 15 years in prison then suspended all but 31 days and gave him credit for one day served, infuriating women's rights activists. The judge, G. Todd Baugh, was censured by state supreme court justices in July in a rare reprimand for improperly suggesting the girl was “as much in control of the situation” as her then 47-year-old teacher. Rambold is to be re-sentenced on Friday by a different judge in a hearing in which prosecutors will technically seek a 20-year prison sentence with 10 years suspended, well over the state minimum of four years with two suspended, legal filings showed. “His position of trust as a high school teacher, abuse of that position and violations against the victim overshadows all mitigating circumstances justifying a minimum sentence,” Yellowstone County Prosecutor Scott Twito wrote in court filings. Twito said Rambold had generally complied with the rules of his probation but that there had been "some very recent issues" with his monitored Internet usage. Rambold was charged in 2008 with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent tied to Moralez. But the teen killed herself in 2010 before the case could go to trial, crippling a prosecution that depended on her testimony. In a plea deal that year, Rambold admitted to a single count of rape, and prosecutors agreed to postpone the case and dismiss it if he completed sex offender treatment. The case was reinstated after Rambold was dismissed from a treatment program for unauthorized contact with minors and for engaging in unapproved sexual relations with a number of different women, prosecutors said. Rambold’s attorney, who a court official said was seeking a 15-year sentence with all but two years suspended, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)