Lynnett Gorman, a Steubenville area school principal, was charged in connection with an April 2012 case unrelated to the sexual assault in August.
Gorman will do community service work to educate people about rape and will volunteer at a rape crisis center. In exchange, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says, the misdemeanor charges against Gorman will be dropped.
But DeWine says penalties should be increased for school officials and others who are required to report these situations but don’t.
"Now I would say that, in my opinion, the law needs to be toughened some," he said. "A fourth degree misdemeanor is the lowest form of misdemeanor, and yet this is really a serious matter...if you are supposed to report child abuse and you don’t report the child abuse. Probably the legislature should look at this and conceivably should increase the penalty and increase the degree of the crime."
DeWine says he’s hoping the community service Gorman is assigned to do will underscore the importance for people to report rape or suspected rape in the future. Steubenville made national headlines recently when a teen girl was raped by students during an alcohol infused party.
