Woman Gets 18 Months for Forced Sex with Boy

(Milford, Connecticut) A 38-year-old woman, Jennifer Esposito, was sentenced to 18 months in state prison for engaging in sex acts with a 14-year-old neighbor boy -- including once when the boy was forcefully being held by her ex-husband, Wayne Pysz.

Esposito and her ex-husband were originally arrested in 2000 and charged with luring the boy into their home and molesting him. Pysz pleaded guilty last fall to two counts of risk of injury to a minor and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Esposito pleaded guilty last spring to two counts of risk of injury to a minor and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, all but 18 months suspended. According to her lawyer, Vito Castignoli, Esposito "is a person of limited intelligence" and she was manipulated by Pysz. A Superior Court Judge apparently bought the mitigating argument and suspended the majority of her sentence.

In summary, a sex crime against a child is punished leniently because the perpetrator is stupid. This doesn't make sense to me. Since stupid people are known to repeat actions many times while anticipating different results, it would seem appropriate to punish stupid people more harshly, not more leniently.