A former elementary school principal in Nebraska will serve two weeks in jail and a year of probation for failing to report a teacher who repeatedly molested several first grade girls in Omaha.

Former Frontenelle Elementary Principal Eric Nelson and his attorney, Steve Lefler, appeared behind surgical masks for a videoconference sentencing hearing last week to argue for a lenient punishment for a charge of failure to report abuse by a teacher, The Omaha World-Herald reports.

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Lefler previously pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor, but Lefler offered numerous excuses for failing to act while first grade teacher Greg Sedlacek molested his students. Sedlacek admitted to molesting six first graders and is serving 40 to 65 years in prison.

Lefler argued it was the district’s responsibility to vet Sedlacek before he was hired, and pointed to a history of inappropriate behavior with students at several prior schools before Frontenelle.

“All they had to do was check his records,” Lefler told the judge.

Prosecutors countered that any failure to vet the teacher had nothing to do with Nelson’s failure to contact authorities when two staffers witnessed Sedlacek with his hand up a student’s dress in November 2018.

The World-Herald reports:

After not addressing the matter that November 2018 day, Nelson went to a doctor’s appointment the next morning. When the staffers returned to school that morning, they were shocked to find Sedlacek in his classroom before school, tutoring first grade students. An assistant principal, Cheryl Prine, contacted authorities.

When Nelson arrived, he ordered Prine into his office. She said Nelson was upset and angry and told her that it wasn’t her school and that “a man’s career was on the line.”

Nelson argued the district’s reporting policy was confusing and previous policy required school officials to investigate allegations before contacting authorities. The principal said he received photos from teachers, and was attempting to match the photos with surveillance video from the playground when Prine contacted police.

Prosecutor Molly Keane wasn’t buying the alleged defenses and said Nelson’s “focus was on protecting himself and Gregory Sedlacek, not this little girl.

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“He had every opportunity to get that man out of the classroom, to review that video,” Keane said. “He didn’t think it was worth his time.”

Ultimately, the judge sentenced Nelson to two weeks in jail and a year of probation, despite 20 letters of support, including a letter of support from former Omaha superintendent John Mackiel, according to the news site.

He faced a maximum punishment of three months in jail and a $500 fine, WOWT reports.

A probation officer who interviewed Nelson wrote the former principal, now a woodworker, “struggles with the fairness of it all.”

“Nor will he ever truly accept that his actions were criminal,” the officer wrote.

The parents of Sedlacek’s victims are also struggling with the principal’s punishment.

Nelson “took what was an unimaginably bad situation and made it worse,” one mother wrote. “He chose to protect a pedophile over my 7-year-old daughter.”