Lesbian Molester Gets Wrist Slapped

(Oakland, California) Last November, 32-year-old Tanda Rucker pleaded no contest to having sex with schoolgirls. The former Encinal High School basketball coach pleaded to 18 felony charges, including 10 counts of penetration with a foreign object and eight counts of oral copulation with minors.

Today, Rucker was sentenced. Although she could have been given more than 14 years in state prison, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon apparently decided to overlook the seriousness of her crimes and instead sentenced Rucker to one year work furlough status at the Cornell Corrections Institute in El Monte. It seems the Cornell facility is close to her current work place so she won't even have to take a vacation day to satisfy the "whereabouts" sentence imposed by Judge Reardon.

Understandably, victims' parents are outraged.

The mother of one victim, who asked that her name not be used, said after Wednesday's hearing that she thinks that Rucker's sentence was "a slap on the wrist" and that Rucker got special treatment because her father, who attended the hearing, is politically powerful in Berkeley.

During the hearing, the mother of another victim told Reardon that to allow Rucker to work while serving her one-year sentence "would be a major injustice to society."

The mother called Rucker "a pedophile" who's highly intelligent and slowly groomed her victims over time by taking them to lunch and flattering them in other ways.

Michael Kinane, an attorney who represents the victims in a civil lawsuit against Rucker, said he's taken depositions indicating that Rucker has molested at least 25 girls.

The civil suit against Rucker goes to trial on June 2. I wonder whether politics will play a part in the civil trial. I don't wonder about its starring role in the criminal proceeding.