HONOLULU A plea deal with prosecutors will allow a former Hawaii police officer to serve probation rather than jail time for sexually assaulting a child.
HONOLULU — A plea deal with prosecutors will allow a former Hawaii police officer to serve probation rather than jail time for sexually assaulting a child.
News outlets reported Wednesday that 45-year-old Teddy O. Van Lerberghe has reached an agreement guaranteeing a five-year probation sentence with no jail term. He must register as a convicted sex offender for life.
An Oahu grand jury indicted him in 2017 on seven counts of sexual assault against a 5-year-old girl beginning in 2004 and continuing until 2008.
Van Lerberghe pleaded no contest to the seven felonies.
He served in the Honolulu Police Department from 2007 until he was fired in 2016.
A spokesman says the Honolulu prosecutor’s office will not comment until after Van Lerberghe is sentenced by a judge in August.
I’ll bet if he was not a cop of Hawaii’s “finest”, who “serve” and “protect”, he’ll be serving at least 10 years behind bars. These cops should be set and example of and throw the book at him.
What kind of message does this send? That if you sexually assault a 5 year old you will just get a slap on the wrist. People are supposed to go to prison for violent crimes, especially when it involves children. The system is broken when people who smoke marijuana, harming no one but themselves, go to jail and people like former officer Lerberghe get probation. It’s a shame he didn’t get at least a year in prison so that he might have the opportunity to experience what it’s like to be sexually assaulted. I am sad for his victim. She is the one who has to live with this for the rest of her life.