Members of a women's organization protested on Tuesday the decision of a Montgomery County judge to reduce the prison sentence of a child rapist.
Members of Montgomery County's chapter of the National Organization for Women protested at noon outside the courthouse against Judge Eric Johnson, who last week reduced Jason Lay's 30-year sentence for raping a 4-year-old girl by 14 years.
Lay, 26, has been in jail for five years for the crime, and his lawyer, Reginald Bours III, said his client has been brutally assaulted repeatedly in a state prison by other inmates. Bours said that was among several factors that led the judge to reduce the sentence.
Bours said the judge was convinced that Lay took responsibility for the crime and that rehabilitation treatments at another jail would be better than being the constant subject to an attack.
Lay will be eligible for parole in 2013.
The NOW protesters said the judge put the rights of Lay ahead of the victim, and that this isn't the first time he has gone easy on child molesters. Two years ago he reduced another man's 18-year sentence to 18 months.
