Law&Crime Sidebar - High School Rapists's Case Reignited with New Court Filing

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

The controversial plea deal that spared Oklahoma teen Jesse Butler from prison is now facing a serious legal challenge. After Butler pleaded no contest to 11 felony charges — including rape and strangulation — and received Youthful Offender status with probation instead of incarceration, one victim’s family is fighting back, filing a motion questioning how the case was resolved. Their attorney, Rachel Bussett, joins Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber to discuss what could happen next as the case returns to court.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Stop guessing - start making perfect food every time. Use code SIDEBAR for 30% off - https://chefiq.com/discount/SIDEBARHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The teen rapist who avoided prison, Jesse Butler, is now facing a legal fight that could maybe change everything. A major new motion has been filed arguing that the victim's rights in this case were violated. There is demand that the controversial plea deal essentially be thrown out. The attorney behind that motion who is representing a victim in this case, Rachel Bussett, joins us to break down where this case could be headed next. Welcome to Sidebar.

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save 30% offsitewide at Chef IQ.com. So we've been following the case of Jesse Butler here on Sidebar, the Oklahoma teen who pleaded no contest to 11 charges, rape, strangulation, and what makes this case so bizarre, what makes this case so different, what has enraged so many people about this case is that after pleading no contest to these very serious felony charges, he only got youthful offender status, avoided prison, and got probation and counseling. Now, the last episode we did, we broke down the major motion that was filed by one victim's attorney, Rachel Bussett. And she is arguing that her client's rights under Marcy's law were violated, and that the victim here wasn't properly consulted or heard before that controversial deal was struck. That attorney's going to come

on in a little bit, talk to us about what happened here, what the arguments are. She's going to walk us through the procedural fight that's happening right now, what the motion actually seeks to do in court, her response to the DA's defense of the process, how her client is holding up. So to understand what is happening now, I just have to quickly get you up to speed. All starts in Stillwater, Oklahoma. You have a high school baseball player named Jesse Butler. Two of his former girlfriends came forward in 2024 alleging horrifying abuse. You had one teen, LS, who claims that after getting ice cream, Butler drove her to a parking lot tried to rape her in his car. According to an affidavit filed with the court, she yelled,

no, pushed back, couldn't stop him. When a bystander heard her screams and interrupted, that's when he stopped. But then when ostensibly taking her back to her own car, he allegedly warned, you're not going until I'm finished. The other girl, chaos we're going to be talking about, says that Butler strangled her until she passed out, raped her, and told her he wanted to choke her so he could film it on his phone. Police say they later found those images on his device. Both girls reported him to their school in September of 2024. One got an emergency protective order,

but she had her family claim Butler kept violating it. He would end up facing a violation of that protection order alongside his other serious felony charges. Arrest warrants were issued in January and February 2025. They weren't executed for weeks. And Butler was finally arrested on March 4th. We have the body cam footage from that day. It shows the moment detectives arrived at his home. Take a look.

Hello. Hello. Are you Jackie? Hi, Jackie. I'm Detective Bruce with the Stoweater Police Department. We're here because we have a warrant for Jesse's arrest. I assume you know that already. Okay. Is he here? Yes. Okay. I told him not to answer the door until I got home. He's scared of that. So here's what's going to happen. Like, we're going to take him into custody. His bond is 25,000. Once he gets to the jail and we get him booked in, well, I guess on the way to the jail, I guess you could, contact a bondsman and or i mean if you have 25 grand lying around you can do that but um if you contact a bondsman then they can post his bond and he can get right out today okay so um and during what kind of time frame does that look like just out of curiosity like midnight tonight or no no no like you can contact a bondsman and it would be like an hour and a half or something andy baker i'm sure

y'all not candy so she's one that told me it's a pretty quick process we just like have to get him booked in and then once he's booked in and just so you know he is a juvenile so he won't be like with any adults like we're yeah he can't be housed with any adults okay um so there is a chance that he may be moved over to Payne County but for right now depending on how long it takes you to get um get with her and get bond set up her right then um then he'll probably just be at our facility at the city of Stillwater okay and she can come over there um it just like we can only hold him for six hours. Oh, okay. So if I get it done now, we're good. He's not going to be moved.

No. Okay, perfect. Okay. He shouldn't be. The only big hold-up is if we have somebody else in the jail because we can't have them intermingle. Like if they're booking somebody and it could hold us up like maybe 15, 20 minutes, something like that. But it's not going to be a long thing generally. We're ready to obviously tell our story too.

Yeah. yes it's mom open the door give me your wallet and phone and stuff so okay you're what they're in the well okay it's fine it's not locked or anything is it okay so can you tell him what you just tell me or yeah um so we're here um we're obviously going to place you under arrest there's a warrant for your arrest we're going to take you to the jail um i told your mom that she can contact a bondsman and you shouldn't be there very long, but there just is a process for paperwork and stuff. But right now you do have to come with us,

and I do have to put you in handcuffs. So turn around for me. Do you have to put in handcuffs? I know. I don't know. You know what you'll lend this. It's okay. You'll check you.

Yeah. I'll get you out. All right. Stay silent. Rick knows about this. Candy's on this. Dad's on this way. We're coming to get you, okay? Stay strong, okay? Say your prayers. Okay, so we will, he's going to go right to the city of Stillwater Jail, and if you'll just contact her, then she does this all the time. She knows what to do. Yeah. I'm sure she knows Stillwater Police Department on Lewis. Yeah. yeah let me know that we're the ones of pictures and when you say we are still at our peony still water peeve me yeah that way they don't think he went like straight over and go over the county that's adorable awesome experience for a child

I'm going to pass it down. I'm going to pass it down and spread your feet for me. Nothing on your side. Let's just seeing a bit. Rewaning his phone. Okay. What about his phone? So that's going to remain out the police permit as evidence.

So we'll hang on to it through the duration of whatever happens with that. Okay. Generally, once the case is adjudicated, then we'll be able to release it that we can't until it's over with. Well, normally. His phone cannot be released. Okay. Yeah. It's a stuff that's on it.

Did he have an ID or anything? Okay. Yeah, and I actually have a copy of the warrant, so I'll get that to you. I'll just get to you with me in that way if I'll get it to the decision set up. Yeah, I can get it out. It's shaky. In here as the most of the large. Thank you, ma'am.

24 central. 24. 24. 10.15. so my attorney told the police that we would bring him in so i did not get that message i did and i called back and i never got a call back from him when did you call him because he's called you several times too he said i've only had one voicemail from him and i called him back after that um sorry i'm trying to get you a copy this warrant um and i haven't received anything from him so other than that one phone call

and that was several months ago probably like his the attorney yeah no no there would be no there would be no reason for me to tell him um but he left you several messages about jesse he left me one message and i returned his call and he didn't call me back so that i took that generally that's i don't want my client to talk to you so when i return the message and then it's not he doesn't make any effort to call me back. That's kind of what I have to go with. Oh, this is just a copy, but you can have that. So it has the charges listed and the bond and the case on there. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. And again, he was charged as an adult initially with 11 felonies, rape, attempted rape, strangulation. He was facing up to 78 years in prison.

But over the summer, after a no contest plea to the charges, the court granted him youthful offender status. Just like that, the potential 78 years in prison vanished. He got probation, counseling, community service, no social media, a restitution payment. If he fails, he could face a 10-year sentence. If he completes it, his record is basically sealed. Now, KS. and her family say they were blindsided. They were outraged. The attorney here, Rachel Busset, representing KS, has filed.

a motion arguing that the victim's rights here were violated under Marcy's law, claiming they weren't properly consulted. They are asking the court to reconsider what happened here. That is the fight that's happening right now, and we want to talk about it. To walk us through all this, we are joined by attorney Rachel Bussett, who is representing KS and her family. Thank you so much for taking the time. Really, really appreciate it. I first want to just start off with your client. KS., her family, it is not a shocker that they have been through a lot. this, what is essentially an unimaginable ordeal. They're in the middle of this legal issue,

but they have been in the spotlight for quite some time since all the news of Jesse Butler broke. How are they doing right now? What is their state of mind right now as they go into this? Well, I think they're just really in shock about what happened. They're not happy. They're frustrated with working with the system.

They feel very not heard and feel like at times they were misled. Now, by the way, I just want to give reviewers and listeners a heads up. I know there's limited information you can talk about since this is an ongoing case. So if I, you know, if there's nothing you can't answer, completely understand. But legally speaking, where do we stand right now? I did a whole other sidebar on the motion, but now there's this petition. Talk to our viewers and listeners about where it currently sits.

Sure. So he has been sentenced under the Youthful Offenders Act and pled no contest. There has been at least one review in December. After that, we filed a motion to enforce the constitutional rights of the victim and to redo sentencing or reconsider the terms of the plea agreement because we believe that their constitutional rights were violated under Marcy's law. And for those who don't know, and because I just explained it, but I want to hear from you, what is a brief summary of why you believe that your client's rights were violated? The victim's rights were violated. This idea of there wasn't a proper notice of what was going on.

There was not a proper explanation of what was going to happen. Perhaps there was misinformation from a victim's perspective. So if you could explain to us what the underlying allegations are. So Marcy's Law is a crime victim's bill of rights, and it was passed into the Oklahoma Constitution in 2018 supplemented by statutory definitions and processes that are supposed to be given to victims. Along the way, if you read through the statement of facts and procedural history in the case, you'll see that there were a number of times where my clients weren't given proper

notice. They didn't follow simple procedural aspects of what we're supposed to do as lawyers. There were other times where they were given partial information or no information at all or the information that they were given was given in such a way that they didn't have a meaningful time to process it, work through it, and understand it. So there are different things that happen at different times. And is the goal for Jesse Butler to ultimately be resentenced for the youthful offender status to be stripped away for him to be sentenced as an adult for him to get prison time? Is that something? Or is it at the very least for your client, her family to be heard, to just be heard in a courtroom? What is the outcome that you're looking for

at this point? We're looking for an outcome that holds him accountable. And I know there are going to be people that say, well, this does hold him accountable as a youthful offender. But the biggest thing is he hasn't admitted what he's done for the youthful offender act to work the way that it's supposed to act. There has to be a taking of responsibility. And he hasn't taken any responsibility here. So we need some sort of admission of responsibility at a minimum. Is there under the law? Has there ever been a situation?

I'll tell you from my point of view, I haven't seen anything like this general. That's why it's such a shocking case. But have you ever seen anything where a victim? rights were violated and the relief that was ultimately ordered by a court was for the defendant, let's say, to be resentenced, for there to be an issue where they do get a more serious consequence, a more serious sentence. Have you ever seen anything like that? I've not seen that in Oklahoma. I've seen it in other states in the cases that we cited in the motion. So I think there is some authority for that in other jurisdictions. I'm not aware of it here. The only other situation that I

personally aware of from personal involvement is where a judge refused to accept a plea because my client and the other individual who were involved, who were also sexual assault victims, did not approve of the plea. And so the judge rejected the plea, but not here in Oklahoma where they've re-sentenced them. Is most of the onus in your perspective on the DA's office or the judge here both? Because the judge here has taken a lot of heat, okay? A lot of Pete, in your perspective, who is more culpable with regards to what happened to Jesse Butler? First of all, there were two judges that were involved. There was Judge Worthington, and there was Judge Kuling, and Judge Kuling is still on the case. And then there's obviously the district attorney's

office. I'm not going to really say who I think was more culpable. I will say that I believe that the system failed from beginning to end. So whoever that falls out on, in my opinion, it failed from beginning to end. So if you go to the paperwork that was filed, your motion states that after you filed an entry of appearance in April, to assert your clients, Marcy's law rights, a series of critical orders were filed without your signature or a clear certificate of service to you. This imperiously includes the May 22nd order delaying the preliminary hearing, the June 12th order striking the hearing. From a victim's rights attorney's perspective, what are the consequences of this?

Why do you think something like this happened? And why is this so important that you and your client do be properly notified of what's going on? Sure. So to be clear, first, I wasn't the original victim's rights attorney that entered. The original attorney was Jessica. Goodwin, I believe is her last name. And it's important that it happens because in the law, we're required to give notice to do certain procedural things every time a motion is filed. If the court takes action, they're required to do that

as well so that we ensure that every party is aware of what's happening. And that doesn't matter whether it's a civil case or a criminal case. That's a basic procedural thing that we're taught from the time you start practicing law. And the failure to do that is key because you can't be prepared if you don't know what's happening and you can't appear if you don't know that there's a court date. So that started from the very beginning of not giving her the proper notice of what was happening where she had to go track down pleadings at the courthouse because they weren't being served on her. And because of the nature of the crime and the age of the perpetrator, these documents also were not available online. And if correct me from wrong,

motion alleges that on August 25th, so the day of the plea hearing, the family was informed of the final terms, right? No contest, no incarceration, in a room, just minutes before walking into court. And I'm quoting here, it says, quotes the DA is saying, we're supposed to include the families in discussions about these things. Sometimes that is a mistake. Talk to us about that. Well, first of all, my client didn't find out all of the terms until they were actually in the courtroom. So they knew as right before as they were walking in that it was going to be no contest and no time. As far as given notice in the victim's room that morning right before walking into court did give them any meaningful time to process what was happening. You know, they did have

notice the Friday before that the previous agreement had gone awry. And it sounds to me as if there really was no previous agreement. And the fact that the DA would say something along the lines of involving the family as a mistake is highly concerned. So in response to the public outcry in this case, you have the Payne County District Attorney Laura Thomas issued a detailed public statement. The DA states that they filed an adult court after consultation with the victims and their families. Your paperwork argues that the consultation wasn't meaningful. And without referencing the specific case, can you explain what that means? I mean, there seems to be a disconnect between what the DA is saying and what your client is alleging.

So there was notice of some things, but not everything. There might not be notice until right before it's happening. That was quite often. Did the DA spend time? Yes, the DA spent time. Different DAs spent different amounts of time with my client as well as the other clients. each were told different things so we have not full notice not meaningful notice of discussing what's happening you know does 10 minutes before you walk into the courtroom does that constitute

notice it's a technical notice but if you didn't know about the hearing and you lived an hour away and you have a right to be present is that sufficient there are lots of different arguments that can be made within what's going on here, the district attorney knew that these young women were adamantly opposed to him not having any time and not pleading guilty. And, you know, consent is not a defense to strangulation. So to say that juries won't find in this way or juries go different ways, I understand that. But there is, there's no consent. to strangulation and certainly no consent to strangulation as a minor. So why we would settle for anything less than guilty on that, just as an attorney blows my mind. Yeah, that was a part

that was confusing to me about what would be the difficulty at trial here because the DA statement explains that a plea had spared the victims a trial and that, quote, youthful offender was the most likely final outcome. Can you explain that? Because again, I was thinking about, as I've been covering this case, what a trial would have looked like, obviously, would have been very, very difficult for your client to go on the stand, explain what happened. Very difficult for a jury to hear about this, of course. But at the same time, you know, if you combine all the evidence that was presented in this case, it felt like a strong case for the prosecution. When you hear the DA saying, well, you know, we spared trial here and the youthful offender status was the most

likely final outcome, what's your response to that? It's the district attorney's, job to go in and to fight and to enforce the law on behalf of all individuals in the state of Oklahoma. I understand she might believe that youthful offender was the most likely outcome. That doesn't mean that she should not go in and fight for what she filed. She filed it as an adult. That means to me that she believed she could get a conviction as an adult. So why back off of it? Or why not go through the entire motion process and have the judge make that ruling after the presentation of evidence. Instead, there were agreements entered, meaning that the district attorney agreed that it should be a youthful offender

status. And I believe that that's problematic. Unless she wants to admit to overcharging people, where she filed it as an adult, knowing it would get kicked down to a youthful offender, that raises all kinds of other concerns if we're going in and we're filing charges too high, and then we're using them to negotiate back down later. Does that mean if you can't afford to hire a high-powered lawyer that you're going to get convicted of or having to plead to a bigger charge than you should have received? It's a fair point.

And I have to ask you, and again, if you don't want to answer completely understand, I think there's this missing gap here where a lot of people just don't understand why would he have been given this treatment in the sense that it doesn't make sense. I'm not from Oklahoma, I think a lot of our viewers maybe are not from Oklahoma, don't know about Jesse Butler, don't know about the court system there. Is there, do you have a theory as to why he received this sentence in the end, why he was given youthful offender status, why he was given essentially probation?

I mean, I've covered cases all over the country. I've never seen anything like this. Is there anything you can share with us about how this was justified in any way? I will say it's legally allowable. Okay. That's a very good lawyer answer. I like that one. Legally allowable.

Okay, fair. It's okay, fair. There was just another part I wanted to ask you about, too, and correct if I'm wrong. There is the victim's protective order remains sealed. And correct me if I'm wrong about that, that there's this protective order. And I think that's a complicating factor, right? It makes it difficult to enforce. Can you talk to us more about that, what that means?

Sure. So because again, it involves a juvenile. It's a sealed protective order. So it's a document that can't be looked up on our public records, our OSCN.net, that allows you to look up and see all of the different court proceedings. Normally, protective orders are something that are available online for anyone to see because this one isn't. If these girls don't have their paperwork with them, when they would encounter him at a public setting, because they all. live in the same community. It becomes their word against his. And so unless you have a police officer there who has immediate ability to access the system, no one's going to know. And that creates a situation because we've already had a previous problem of the protective order not being properly enforced when they were all in school together. By the way, before I let you go, just overall, the youthful offender status in Oklahoma, how does it work? I mean, we don't talk about it a lot here? How does the system work? What should we know about it? So the youthful offender program is a program for older teens that are still minors under the law that commit more serious crimes to

look at it and see if they should get more serious punishments based upon the crime that was committed, murder and rape being two of the crimes that allow you to file as an adult. And there is a question in our mind as to whether or not with the rape one and the attempted rape one, if there is even a process within the statutes to make that go back to a youthful offender when it's been filed as an adult. It was reverse. I forgot the terminology that was used in the paperwork. The reverse certification. Some people will tell you that reverse certification doesn't technically exist anymore. But when you read the statute, 2-5-205, I believe. believe it is. It's early, so forgive me if I got the site wrong. But when you look at subsection

A and B, that relates to murder and subsection D relates to rape. And when you look at it, it talks about in subsection A for younger individuals accused of murder, the process of filing as an adult and then reviewing it to see if it should go back to youthful offender or juvenile. B does not allow that. And our position is that subsection D as it relates to rape is more like subsection B when filed as an adult. It's an adult. You file it as an adult, you move forward as an adult. By the way, again, before I let you go, and I'll fish to let you go because I know that you're busy. What has been the public's response been like? What has the community's response been like? Obviously, there seems to be a sense of outrage, but on the part of your

client, their family, have they been receiving a mountain of support through all of this? What has it been like for them, for you to see the public, essentially, or a large part of the public turn on Jesse Butler and ask questions about what happened here and follow the ongoing aspects of this case? The community has been very supportive, not just in Stillwater, but across the state and nationally. that feels very good because, as you know, from doing this, rape victims, sexual assault survivors often don't get this kind of support. And it shows you the outrage within the community to punish

for the failure to punish meaningfully offenders who commit these kinds of crimes. Women, especially young teen women in Oklahoma, do not feel protected as a result of what happened here. And we know statistically, individuals who strangle are more likely to murder and more likely to re-offend. And so this puts an individual on the street without real punishment, in our opinion, who is likely to offend again and severely harm if not kill somebody. Rachel Busset, thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Sending our well wishes to chaos and her family, again, going back to this idea, it's very

difficult to imagine what she has been through and this is continuing on and this can't be easy but appreciate you taking the time to explain a little bit more about what's happening. Well, thank you so much for having this on. I really appreciate it. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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