Justice on Trial: How Jesse Butler Turned 11 Felonies Into a Year of Freedom | Eric Faddis Breaks It Down
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 912 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
And somehow—no prison time.
In this episode of Hidden Killers with Tony Brueski, defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis joins Tony, Stacy, and Todd to unpack how Stillwater, Oklahoma’s justice system transformed one of the state’s most brutal sexual-assault cases into a single year of “rehabilitation.”
Eighteen-year-old Jesse Mack Butler was originally charged with rape, attempted rape, sexual battery, and assault and battery by strangulation after attacking two 16-year-old girls.
Police recovered partial phone-video evidence of the assault; one victim required neck surgery after nearly dying.
Because Butler was 17 at the time, his defense argued for Youthful Offender status. The court agreed. A potential 78-year sentence vanished, replaced with one year of supervision.
Tony and Eric break down:
- How a no-contest plea erased accountability.
- Why prosecutors accepted leniency despite overwhelming evidence.
- The legal loopholes in Oklahoma’s Youthful Offender statute.
- Whether empathy or privilege decided the outcome.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Looking for a true crime podcast that goes beyond the headlines. |
| 0:03.6 | When I interviewed her 20 years on, she said that Fred told her there were hundreds of bodies buried in Gloucester. |
| 0:11.4 | It's a deeply disturbed love story. |
| 0:14.7 | Join Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt and journalist Helen Fospero on true criminals, |
| 0:22.7 | a weekly deep dive into the cases that shook the world, with insights so shocking they still haunt our imagination today. |
| 0:28.4 | This is True Criminals. Looking for a true crime podcast that goes beyond the headlines. |
| 0:33.6 | When I interviewed her 20 years on, she said that Fred told her there were hundreds of bodies buried in Gloucester. |
| 0:41.3 | It's a deeply disturbed love story. |
| 0:44.3 | Join Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt and journalist Helen Fospero on true criminals. |
| 0:50.3 | A weekly deep dive into the cases that shook the world, with insights so shocking, they still haunt our imagination today. |
| 0:58.4 | This is True Criminals. |
| 1:00.2 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske, Stacey Cole, and Todd Michaels. |
| 1:09.0 | And on this episode, we take you back to Stillwater, Oklahoma. |
| 1:13.7 | The Jesse Mac Butler case. Jesse Mac Butler charged with 11 felonies. |
| 1:20.1 | S.A. attempted S.A. S. Battery and assault and battery by strangulation. You know, |
| 1:26.0 | type of things that happen in all teenage relationships. |
| 1:28.7 | Oh, wait. After attacking two 16-year-old girls, one was choked unconscious, the other needed neck surgery. |
| 1:37.3 | Doctors said seconds longer and she would have died. Police found a partial phone video of the assault, |
| 1:43.4 | because why not tape the event. |
| 1:47.4 | He pled no contest because he was 17 when it happened. The court granted something called |
| 1:52.7 | youthful offender status, a fun little thing that they have in Oklahoma. A potential 78-year |
| 1:59.3 | prison term then became a one year of supervision, and people are a little pissed. |
... |
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