A New Jersey school bus driver accused of molesting two young students during daily games of “hide-and-seek” got no prison time Thursday.
Judge Stephen Taylor instead sentenced Thomas Thomasevich to parole supervision for a minimum of 15 years after the 70-year-old admitted to inappropriately touching the students on his bus in last fall, NJ.com reported.
Prosecutors alleged Thomasevich molested the Kinnelon, Morris County students during the daily games, and also bribed them with candy and donuts so they wouldn’t reveal the months of abuse they endured.
Thomasevich’s attorney John Bruno pleaded that his client would face “excessive hardship” if he was sent to jail again.
“Those four months in the Morris County Jail broke him. It practically destroyed him,” Bruno said, according to NJ.com.
“I’ve never seen a grown man cry so much,” he said.
Taylor also Thomasevich must register as a sex offender in the state.