Reply #32: My guess - and it's only a guess - is that prosecutors didn't think they could get a conviction.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

It's possible that the prosecutor really is just mad and thought that probation was an adequate sentence for a serial child rapist, but my guess is that what happened was that they didn't think (rightly or wrongly I don't know) that they had enough evidence to convict him in court, and so they decided that a plea bargain and a slap on the wrist was better than nothing.