When Erica DePalo walks out of the courthouse today having admitted to a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old English student, she will likely leave a parole enrollee.

No jail time.

And no community service.

Instead, DePalo will lose her teaching license and she’ll be forced to register under Megan’s Law, under the terms of a plea deal reached in February with prosecutors.

Critics have called the punishment for the former Essex County teacher of the year too lenient and reflective of a double standard that disproportionately penalizes men for similar relationships with students.

A Star-Ledger analysis of 97 cases in New Jersey over the past decade reveals significant disparities: Men are on average sent to jail in more cases and receive longer sentences.

The data about 72 men and 25 women also shows:

•Male defendants went to prison in 54 percent of cases compared with 44 percent of cases for female defendants;

•Men averaged 2.4 years in prison compared with 1.6 years in prison for women, or 50 percent more time;

•Ninety-three of the 97 cases ended in plea deals;

•Forty-seven cases ended in noncustodial sentences, which typically involved pre-trial intervention programs or probation.

There are various reasons for the disparities in these cases, experts say, including the perception that girls and women need to be protected and are more vulnerable than their male counterparts, the availability of evidence, and the willingness of the student to participate in the prosecution.

"There’s a general societal disposition that does continue to treat women as the gentler sex, so typically the threshold for sending women to prison is higher," said Martin Horn, director of the New York State Sentencing Commission and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

All cases studied involve teachers, substitute teachers, coaches or school personnel who admitted to, or were convicted of, engaging in sexual relationships with students connected to their school.

"Juries and judges sort of make a consideration about how exploitative the crime is and how predatory the perpetrator is," Horn said. "The system is supposed to make discriminations or make distinctions between individuals based on their perceived levels of culpability."

Most of the 97 cases analyzed were described in reports as consensual in nature (though not in the eyes of the law). In New Jersey, the age of consent is 16, but a person in a supervisory role, such as a teacher, can be guilty of sexual offenses even if a student is 16 or 17.

Because New Jersey’s Administrative Office of the Courts does not keep separate records on sex crimes committed by educators, The Star-Ledger used reports filed by the state Board of Examiners detailing teacher license suspensions. The suspension reports that described inappropriate student relationships were cross-checked with court records to obtain necessary information. This is not inclusive of every teacher-student case in the past 10 years.

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The newspaper’s analysis included several high-profile cases, including a female Hammonton High gym teacher accused of having sexual contact with multiple students who wound up being fined and losing her teaching license and a Sussex County case in which the 15-year-old female victim wrote a letter to the judge pleading for leniency for her former Kittatinny Regional High School teacher, a man, who received a three-year term. Of the 97 cases in the past 10 years, the longest sentence was seven years for a female and 10 for a man, though the male case involved multiple relationships.

The best cases for prosecutors include physical evidence, DNA, text messages, e-mails or video chats.

"We’re looking for proofs. Is there corroboration? Is there something other than the victim’s testimony that we’ll be able to point to and the jury will be able to rely on?" said acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray.

But in the vast majority of cases defendants pleaded guilty to charges, oftentimes because the only evidence available was the student, who may not want to testify. They may not see what happened to them as abuse, though their parents disagree and it is against the law.

"Some of them really think they’re in love," said Essex County First Assistant Prosecutor Robert Laurino. "They want nothing to do with us."

RELUCTANT VICTIMS

Prior to the 1990s, victims could be sedated and forced to undergo physical examinations, Laurino said. The practice was harmful psychologically and physically. Today, prosecutors give greater consideration to what a victim wants.

"Theoretically, we are the state. We can compel people to testify, but we’re not going to force a victim to engage in a trial or a prosecution if they don’t want to," Laurino said.

And time delays can make presenting the case to a jury difficult.

"Most jurors do listen to evidence, do listen to the law, but when the case goes to trial in a year or two, the juvenile victim is that much older, the perception for the jury is somewhat different," Murray said. "Particularly if you have a small 16-year-old, you tend to have a big 18-year-old two years later."

John Esmerado, an assistant prosecutor in Union County who heads the office’s Child Advocacy Center, said generally when there is a supervisory relationship and sexual intercourse or penetration, his office begins plea discussions at a state prison offer.

"If there’s a reduction, it has nothing to do with gender; it has everything to do with the underlying proofs," he said.

In one of the few cases to go to trial in Somerset County, former Immaculata High basketball coach Pamela Balogh rejected a plea deal that would have carried a 10-to-20-year prison term and opted to go to trial on charges she had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old female player on the team. Balogh contended the girl was 16. "The year makes a big difference," Balogh’s attorney James Wronko said. "It’s a matter of 10 potential years (jail time)."

The jury dismissed the top first-degree charge but convicted Balogh of the lesser charges. She was sentenced to seven years in jail, the highest term of the female cases.

In 47 of the cases analyzed by The Star-Ledger, defendants received noncustodial sentences, which usually involved probation and loss of teaching license.

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Richard Pompelio, attorney and director of the N.J. Crime Victims’ Law Center, has represented victims in these cases about a half-dozen times over the past 20 years. He sees noncustodial sentences as insufficient punishment for any teacher, regardless of age or gender.

"We put so much faith and trust in teachers, and to breach that trust is just a fundamental violation on the part of the school and to parents and kids," Pompelio said. "There’s got to be a deterrent factor. If you take away their license and give them a slap on the hand, that’s no punishment."

COMPLICATED CASES

Disparities exist within gender categories as well.

• In 2011, a Bergen County substitute female teacher was sentenced to one year probation for engaging in a relationship with a 14-year-old boy she met at the Robert L. Craig school in Moonachie.

• In a similar case a year earlier, a substitute female teacher was sentenced to six years in prison for a relationship with a 14-year-old boy in Riverside Middle School-High School Burlington County.

• A Hudson County Prep math male teacher received a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2011 to charges stemming from a relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

• A girls softball coach, a male at Wayne Valley High School in Bergen County, received 45 days in jail and three years’ probation after pleading guilty in 2012 to a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.

There are other legal statutes that influence a case’s outcome, including how old a victim was and whether the educator was acting in a "supervisory capacity" when the relationship occurred. A school teacher who engages in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student over the summer, for instance, might not be breaking the law, said Mark Ali, director of the Special Victims Unit in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.

"We’ve had cases where someone is a day younger than 16. Because they’re 24 hours away, does that make them that much more vulnerable?" asked Ali. "These cases, like the relationships involved in them, are really very complicated."