David Pyle, an Oklahoma prosecutor who agreed to probation for an admitted child rapist with probation, has resigned, the Kansas City Star reports. Pyle was responsible for a plea deal in which Benjamin Petty, 36, received 15 years’ probation after pleading guilty to raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old Texas girl at a church camp in 2016. The deal, which was made public on Tuesday, stirred outrage both close to home and nationally. Petty is legally blind, and Pyle had said his medical condition was a factor in the plea deal.“I don’t think anybody in our community is very happy about him making a deal, and not serving any time,” said Craig Ladd, District Attorney in Murray County, Tx.
“I want it to be known that I strongly disagree with the lenient manner in which the Benjamin Petty case in Murray County was prosecuted in many respects,” Ladd said. Petty, of Spencer, Ok., received suspended sentences after entering a negotiated guilty plea to three felony counts: first-degree rape, forcible sodomy and rape by instrumentation. He was working as a cook at a church camp in the summer of 2016 when he raped the girl and threatened to physically hurt her if she told anyone. Petty told her he was going to show her how to perform tricks with some kind of device he had when he suddenly pulled her into his cabin. He closed the door to his bedroom, tied the girl’s hands behind her back with rope, and violently raped and sodomized her, court documents say.