More than two years ago, we brought you the story of Brandon Brady, then a 19-year-old student with the High Plains Technology Center in Woodward. Brady had accompanied several special needs classmates on an overnight field trip to a Skills USA competition in Tulsa. While staying at the Doubletree Hotel for the convention, Brady raped each of his two roommates on consecutive days.Brady was booked into the Tulsa County Jail on two counts of first degree rape, and there he remained for the next two years. Earlier this week, Brady waived his right to a trial and pleaded guilty to both charges. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for each count, and Tulsa County District Judge Kurt Glassco ordered that the two counts be served consecutively. Additionally, first degree rape in an 85 percent crime which requires that at least 85 percent of the sentence is served before the inmate obtains even the possibility of parole.Initially, Brady was charged with first degree rape by force and fear, or in the alternative, first degree rape of a mentally incapacitated person. As disposed, the conviction shows Brady guilty of forcible rape.Oklahoma rape laws define first degree rape in 18 O.S.§ 1114. Rape is non-consensual sexual penetration, and it is classified by its severity as either first degree rape or second degree rape. Second degree rape, also known as statutory rape, is typically marked by sex with a person who, although a willing participant in the act, is legally unable to consent to sex because of age, custodial status, or student status. First degree rape is the more serious offense, and it involves one or more of the following acts of non-consensual sex:

• rape of a child under 14 by a person over 18
• rape of a person who is incapable of giving legal consent due to mental illness or "unsoundness of mind"
• rape accomplished by the intoxication of the victim
• rape of a person who is "unconscious of the nature of the act"
• use of force, violence, or threat of force or violence to accomplish a rape
• rape by instrumentation resulting in bodily harm
• rape by instrumentation committed against a child�under�14

It is interesting in the Brady case that both he and his victims suffered some degree of mental incapacity. However, the sentencing judge noted that Brady himself had only mild learning disabilities, but his victims had "far greater mental incapacity � Down syndrome and severe mental retardation." In determining what he believed to be an appropriate sentence, Judge Glassco said that the young man, now 22, exploited the mental disabilities of his roommates.