photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Esteban Levi Plunkett

A University of Kansas student who was originally charged with rape was sentenced on Friday to nearly three years in prison — suspended to probation — after accepting a plea deal for aggravated battery and residential burglary.

The student, Esteban Levi Plunkett, 19, was charged with rape in connection with an incident on Oct. 28, 2023.

“He did make some incredibly bad decisions that night,” said his defense attorney, Jessica Glendening, at Friday’s sentencing hearing in Douglas County District Court. She told the court that the incident involved “college students, alcohol and marijuana.”

No details about the incident were addressed at the sentencing, and the victim did not appear, although she did supply a written statement. Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal said the victim did not want the statement read into the record and handed it instead to Judge Stacey Donovan, who read it silently before pronouncing the sentence.

Leal said the victim was “involved” with the negotiations that led to the plea deal.

Glendening told the court that Plunkett was in treatment for substance abuse.

Donovan said such a treatment program was more likely than prison to prevent Plunkett, who has no criminal history, from committing similar crimes in the future. She also said she took into account Plunkett’s age and the “wishes of the victim.”

“You’re a teenager,” she told Plunkett, who will turn 20 Saturday.

“You’ve made some very, very, very serious mistakes due in no small part to your addiction,” Donovan said, while also noting that “what you’ve done has hurt another human being very much.”

When asked if he had anything to say before being sentenced, Plunkett said, “I have nothing, your honor.”

Donovan, who inherited the case earlier this summer from another division, sentenced Plunkett to 32 months for the aggravated battery count and 12 months for the burglary count, to run concurrently. She then suspended the sentence to three years of probation, ordered Plunkett to pay $713 in costs and fees, to engage in 40 hours of community service and to register as an offender for the duration of his probation.