Time-served sentence for NP defendant closes book on case

Friday, March 22, 2013
Brandon Largent

The youngest and least involved of the three former North Putnam staff members charged in a high-profile child seduction case involving the same male student was sentenced Thursday in Putnam Circuit Court.

Brandon D. Largent, 21, Crawfordsville, a volunteer assistant swim coach and paid lifeguard at North Putnam from November 2011 through spring 2012, accepted a plea agreement last month and agreed to plead guilty to battery, a Class B misdemeanor.

In exchange for the guilty plea, the prosecution agreed to drop the child seduction charge against Largent.

Judge Matthew Headley Thursday ordered a 180-day sentence for Largent, allowing him to be released for time served and placing him on probation from now through the end of September.

"How much time did you spend in jail?" the judge asked Largent, seated in court alongside his Crawfordsville attorney, Heather L. Perkins.

"Sixteen hours," he answered.

And that will apparently be all the time he spends behind bars for his role in a case that stunned the school corporation and the community just over a year ago.

Prosecutor Timothy Bookwalter explained why that was acceptable to the state.

"We treated all three defendants differently," Bookwalter explained, noting the disparity of their level of involvement with the victim.

Reportedly, Largent's lone physical contact with victim was one kiss in a North Putnam classroom. And with only a four-year age difference (20 and 16) between the two at the time, extenuating circumstances can be reasonably seen.

Largent, the prosecutor noted, "was not a teacher, while the others were." He also was not a part of the situation in which the other two defendants, Nicholas Vester, 25, Lafayette, and Craig E. Rogers, 25, Indianapolis, allegedly conspired to meet the young victim and engage in sexual activity with the boy.

"Vester, in my opinion, was the worst of them," Bookwalter told the court of the defendant who had been accused of engaging in "deviant sexual conduct."

A former interim Spanish teacher, Vester reportedly engaged in the most extreme physical contact with the student, including anal intercourse and oral sex.

He pled guilty to child seduction (with no benefit of a plea deal) and was sentenced to two years in the Indiana Department of Correction. The first year of Vester's sentence is to be served in prison with the remaining year on probation.

Rogers, who was released on probation earlier this month after serving 63 days of an 18-month sentence in the DOC, also pled guilty to child seduction in a plea agreement. The North Putnam music teacher was accused of fondling the teenager in a sexual manner in an incident at the school.

Even the victim's father apparently didn't want to see Largent dealt with as severely as either Vester or Rogers.

"The father of the victim is in court here today," Bookwalter said. "He is aware of the plea and has chosen not to testify."

Sentences for both Vester and Rogers include being listed on the Indiana sex offender registry for 10 years, a no-contact order with anyone age 16 or under and revocation of their Indiana teaching licenses.

Largent's sentence, meanwhile, did not include any listing on the sex offender registry.

Headley did impose a no-contact order for Largent relative to the victim and ordered him to serve 24 hours of community service. He is also to continue counseling sessions.

"This gives closure to a case that put a tremendous black eye on the community, and more importantly on the victim's life," Judge Headley said.

The case came to light in January 2012 after the victim and his family contacted authorities.

The encounters between school personnel and the NPHS student occurred both on and off school property, the investigation revealed, between November 2011 and January 2012.