Should We Care About a Rapist's Parental Status?

September 27th, 2005 5:53 PM

Rene Syler delivered this little blurb at 8:01 today on the Early Show:

In upstate New York, a plea deal in a teacher sex case. Beth Geisel, a former Catholic school teacher, will be sentenced in November for having sex with a 16-year old student. The 42-year old mother of four will serve six months in jail.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why is Geisel's status as a "mother of four" included? The woman is a self-confessed rapist, having had sex with a minor, and what's more a minor under her care and responsibility as a school teacher. But with the news item delivered as it was, it sounds almost like we should feel sorry her for her being kept from her kids from the next six months just because she had a tryst with some guy.