A Manhattan judge’s “outrageous” decision to send a convicted rapist back on the streets rather than to prison could deliver a chilling message to sexual assault victims, experts said Wednesday — while blasting the move as “a grave miscarriage of justice.”
Advocacy groups who work with sexual abuse victims were horrified after The Post exposed the slap-on-the-wrist sentence for William Hathaway, 33, who had faced up to four years behind bars for the 2020 rape of a 23-year-old woman he met on Tinder.
“This sentence treats rape like shoplifting,” fumed Scott Berkowitz, president and founder of Rape Abuse & Incest Nation Network. “It just doesn’t fit the crime that he was convicted of.
“The FBI ranks rape as the second most violent crime behind only murder,” Berkowitz told The Post. “Any