The sentence has led to angry calls to the judge's chambers from people outraged by the sentence, which was shared widely on social media and has generated thousands of signatures on an online petition calling for the judge's ouster.
The case in Watertown, about 112km north of Syracuse, also has reignited a fresh debate over the severity of punishments handed down to sex offenders.
In 2016, former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was sentenced to six months in prison after having sexually assaulted an unconscious woman. The furor surrounding his case prompted nationwide demands for the resignation of the sentencing judge.
Last year, a doctor in Houston, Shafeeq Sheikh, was given 10 years of probation after raping a patient.
Susan Estrich, a professor at the University of Southern California's law school, called it "shocking" that Piche was allowed to plead guilty to what she said were "watered-down" third-degree rape charges.
"It's outrageous," she said. "This is back to the future. This is what we've been fighting against for 30 years."
She said the plea agreement effectively blamed the 14-year-old victim. "This is the beginning of a backlash in the courts — leaning over backward to protect men," Estrich said.
Hours after Piche's sentencing, a petition was launched on MoveOn.org to remove McClusky from the bench. The judge was elected in 2011 to a 14-year term on the Supreme Court.
"Remove him from his position immediately for his blatant disregard for survivors of sexual assault," reads the petition that by Tuesday had gathered more than 20,000 signatures.
Prosecutors had requested that Piche be assigned a Level 2 sex-offender designation, which would have meant that his future addresses would have been published on the state's sex offender registry.
The victim's mother had said she had been hoping that Piche would receive prison time.
"He took something from my daughter she will never get back and has caused her to struggle with depression and anxiety," the mother said in a statement obtained by WWNY, a Watertown-area television station. In February, when Piche entered the guilty plea, the girl's mother told the station that Piche "bought her daughter gifts and invited her and other minors to his home, where he gave them alcohol."
Piche's lawyer, Eric T. Swartz, could not be reached Tuesday for comment, but he told WWNY that the sentence was just.
"He'll be a felon for the rest of his life. He's on the sex offender registry for a long time," Swartz told WWNY. "Maybe not the rest of his life because of the level, but this isn't something that didn't cause him pain and this isn't something that didn't have consequences."
The maximum sentence for third-degree rape is 1 1/3 to four years in prison, according to a spokesman for the Unified Court System, Lucian Chalfen. But he said McClusky was "well within" the sentencing range for the negotiated plea.
"The defendant is now a convicted sex offender who will spend the next decade on a very onerous and intrusive sex offender probation and have to register as a sex offender," Chalfen said in a statement.
He said the majority of the "vitriolic calls" to McClusky have come from out-of-state callers who "know nothing about the facts and circumstances of the case, thanks to social media."
"Judicial independence is a cornerstone of our society," Chalfen said. "Removing judges for handing down sentences that some may disagree with cuts both ways, leaving us with no process of accountability."
Written by: Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
