Outrage has erupted among parents after the son of an influential sports coach escaped jail time despite facing serious charges of rape and strangulation that nearly resulted in the death of one victim.

Eighteen-year-old Jesse Mack Butler was initially looking at a decade-long prison sentence for his offenses. However, he has instead been sentenced to a rehabilitation program and a few hours of community service.

“This is appalling,” said the mother of one of Butler’s victims in an exclusive interview. She expressed her frustration with the lenient sentence handed down to Butler.

The mother, who requested anonymity and preferred to be called “Amber,” drew a stark comparison between Butler’s punishment and her own teenage experiences, stating, “I received similar punishments for breaking curfew when I was a teenager.”

Amber, keen to protect her identity due to the case’s sensitivity, voiced her concern about the broader impact of the decision. “It’s a complete injustice to these girls and future victims because, statistically, it won’t end,” she remarked.

She further criticized the ruling, emphasizing the potential danger it poses: “Not only is this a slap in the face to these survivors, but it also risks the safety of other women by failing to hold him accountable.”

Butler, from Stillwater, Oklahoma, originally pleaded not guilty but then changed his plea to ‘no contest’ to 10 felony charges including rape by instrumentation, attempted rape, domestic assault and battery by strangulation, sexual battery and forcible oral sodomy, court documents obtained by the Daily Mail show.

He was sentenced to seven 10-year terms, two of three years and two of one year, all to be served concurrently meaning he would have faced 10 years behind bars. But his then attorney applied for him to be treated as a youthful offender since he was 17 at the time of the crimes, which meant he wouldn’t spend even a day in prison. 

Butler’s offenses were committed against two girls he dated, both of whom were 16 at the time.

One girl, referred to in court papers as L.S, said Butler raped or attempted to rape her multiple times – and physically attacked her if she said no to sex, according to a police affidavit.

She told investigators Butler had strangled her unconscious, nearly killing her, and required her to have painful surgery on her neck.

Her mother shared photos with Daily Mail of her neck injury taken immediately after the surgery, that left the girl with a two-inch scar.

The girl said Butler warned if she reported him, he would kill her, her family, himself or even his own family, the documents say.

A second girl, identified as K.S. in court papers, said Butler was threatening and physically violent towards her, so she complied with unwanted sex to avoid being harmed. 

A police affidavit recounts how Butler strangled the girl unconscious after she turned him down for sex. It said he later strangled her again and filmed it in a sick video cops discovered on his mobile phone.

But after his case reached a judge, Butler’s lawyer applied to have him downgraded from an adult to a ‘youthful offender’, which would mean a less severe punishment.

Payne County District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas agreed to the move as part of a highly controversial plea deal that was opposed by the girls and their families but approved by a judge.

As a result, the teen predator was handed a slap-on-the-wrist punishment of court-ordered rehabilitation involving weekly counseling, a curfew, daily check-ins, a social media ban and 150 hours of community service.

The plan, devised by the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs and revealed in court last week, will remain in force until Butler turns 19 – just 10 months from now.

If he successfully complies and breaks no further laws, he will avoid serving any prison time.

Butler’s sentence sparked outrage among locals in the town, causing the case to blow up on social media in recent days. 

Amber said her family is in ‘disbelief’ over Butler’s sentence and said he ‘100 per cent should have faced incarceration’.

‘It felt like the air was knocked out of me, because the hell these girls went through, not only with the vicious attacks, but also a year of prepping them, counseling and everything, so that they could testify…and having to re-traumatize them, only for him to just walk and them not even being able to speak their truth in a courtroom.’

The married mom said her world was ‘turned upside down’ when her daughter revealed Butler repeatedly abused her during their three-month relationship between January and March 2024.

Amber said at first, Butler had appeared ‘like a knight in shining armor’, saying and doing all ‘the right things’ when her daughter was heartbroken over a previous relationship.

But as time went on, he repeatedly physically and sexually violated her daughter, resulting in her needing surgery on her neck, she said.

Butler’s abuse also robbed her daughter of a ‘normal high school experience’ and saw her skip prom because she feared he would be there.

But the girl is adamant she will not give anything else up, her mom said, revealing that she is still active in her church and in the community, is hitting good school grades and dreams of going into pediatric nursing.

The mothers of the teen survivors, both now 17, told the Daily Mail that Butler’s light punishment robbed their daughters of real justice and risked endangering other women and girls who cross paths with him in the future.

They also revealed how they were ‘blindsided’ by Butler, who they say masqueraded as the ‘perfect boyfriend’, while abusing their daughters behind closed doors.

But the girls have refused to be cowed or defined by their harrowing ordeals and are healing with the help of counseling, their moms said.

The second girl’s mother, who requested only her first name, Yvonne, be published, said the sentence was ‘not a real punishment’ and did not match the severity of Butler’s crimes.

‘It’s a joke. It’s not equivalent to what he did to them,’ she said.

She added that her daughter is ‘frustrated with the outcome, because the detective told them that he would be disciplined for what he did’.

‘As parents, we put our faith in the justice system to take care of this…and they didn’t handle it well.’

The girls and their families ‘begged’ the DA not to strike the plea deal, she said, insisting it ‘wasn’t in the best interests’ of the girls or the community.

‘I told the DA, I don’t want him to get away with this, because I cannot know that another mother is going to have to go through what I went through.

‘By giving him youthful offender status, all the prison time went away.’

Yvonne said locals outraged by the sentence had asked why she and her husband didn’t take justice into their own hands.

‘That’s not going to help my daughter, she needs her parents at home. We’re not murderers and we’re not violent,’ she added.

The family have ruled out pursuing a civil suit, she said, as it would go against their Christian beliefs.

‘I’m just tired of being mad. It’s exhausting. I’m trying to help my daughter get through this and have a normal life,’ Yvonne added.

She told how Butler fooled the family about his true intentions with their daughter during their six-month relationship between March and September 2024.

Butler was her daughter’s first boyfriend, and he quickly ingratiated himself with her family, Yvonne said.

‘We were blindsided by Jesse. We thought he was wonderful. He played the role of a good boyfriend really well.

‘He brought her flowers and took her to nice places. He came to our game nights at home, it seemed to us like he was good to her.

‘She would go to his house and on dates with him, and that’s when he was abusing her.

‘But we didn’t know what was happening, when we weren’t around.

‘After she broke up with him, she told us: ‘You don’t know him’.’

The girl even took friends as witnesses when she told Butler they were over in a parking lot at the school football game

‘She was scared he was going to hurt her’ her mom revealed.

Butler comes from an influential sports family from Stillwater, the home of Oklahoma State University.

His father, Mack Butler, is lauded in the Oklahoma Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, having been OSU football team’s director of operations between 2001 and 2004, and later in 2009 to 2021.

He was previously assistant athletic director for football operations at Louisiana State University and in 2022, he was hired as the assistant athletics director for Stillwater Public Schools, a group of schools that includes his son’s, Stillwater High.

Butler’s mother Jacque Butler is, according to her Facebook page, a coordinator for Cowboy Sports Properties at OSU.

Butler played for Stillwater High’s baseball team and others, including Red Dirt and Risin, according to online snaps and player profiles seen by Daily Mail before they were pulled offline.

The school district said it couldn’t comment on any specifics of his case, due to student privacy laws.

Butler has boasted on his social media accounts of being ‘5’9′, 185lbs’ and in one bio boldly states, ‘Baseball and weights but most importantly god’.

But the teen predator had less to say when the Daily Mail approached him at his parents’.

Asked what he had to say about his vile sex crimes, Butler, wearing a Risin baseball shirt and sports shorts, replied ‘No Ma’am’ before quickly closing the front door.

In a statement, the District Attorney’s Office said: ‘The youthful offender sentence imposed against Jesse Butler requires him to complete his rehabilitation plan successfully, including an aggressive schedule of therapy with a specialist in sex offender treatment, and should he fail, he faces reclassification as an adult and a sentence of ten years in prison.’