NORTHFIELD, Ohio – Parents in the Nordonia Hills City School District are fuming after learning the school board president wrote a letter to a judge tasked with sentencing the board’s former president for child pornography crimes.

“When our board president, Mr. Virost, thinks it’s a good idea to support former president, Mr. Bittel, a convicted felon kiddy porn viewer who threatened the lives of two Sagamore police officers, it is time for Mr. Virost to go,” parent John Brachna told the Nordonia Board of Education at a recent meeting.

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Ohio’s WKYC reports former board president Steven Bittel was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of pandering, pandering obscenity involving a minor, illegal use of a minor in nudity and obstructing official business after investigators discovered his IP address on a child pornography network.

Bittel, 54, must also register as a sex offender for 25 years after his release from prison. He faced up to 31 years in prison, and many parents believe letters submitted to Judge Richard Reinbold on his behalf contributed to the relatively light sentence, according to the news site.

Bittel was arrested September after a five-hour standoff with police at his home, where he barricaded himself inside the bathroom and threatened to shoot police with a handgun, the Nordonia Hills News-Leader reports.

Parents of Nordonia students later learned Reinbold received a total of 27 letters on Bittel’s behalf before sentencing, including a missive from current board president Jim Virost that said “Bittel worked on behalf of the students.”

“He even donated his annual salary to help fund (an) outdoor classroom,” the letter read.

Other letter writers, like members of the St. Barnabas Church Bittel attended, also submitted letters touting his volunteer work with children.

Parish Catechetical Leader Toni Zobel wrote that Bittel worked with children in preschool through junior high, and “never in that time have I had any concerns about his appropriateness with children nor had any complaints from parents.

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“ … Even after his arrest, no one has come forward,” Zobel wrote, according to the News-Leader.

It was Virost’s letter, however, that infuriated parents.

“Wow! Mr. Virost feels it’s worthy to acknowledge that a former board president kiddie porn viewer helped to build something for our children!” Brachna said to the board after the sentencing.

“You were elected to protect our children, and instead you protected a pedophile and I have a really hard time with that,” another parent said, according to ABC 5.

Virost told the news site he did not seek leniency in his letter to Reinbold, but conceded that writing it was a mistake.

“I never expected members of the community would perceive my letter to the judge as acceptance of his actions, and his heinous crimes against children,” Virost said. “In retrospect I should have listened to my advisors. Writing this letter was a mistake.”

“I told him I could not and would not write a letter asking for leniency, as the crimes he committed were horrific,” he added. “I told him he deserved whatever sentence the court imposed on him.”

The incident in Nordonia certainly isn’t unique.

Seven teachers in Michigan’s West Branch-Rose City school district wrote letters to a judge in 2013 pleading for leniency in the sentencing of colleague Neal Erickson, who was convicted of raping a male student multiple times over several years.

A member of the local school board also sat with Erickson’s family as the judge sentenced the former teacher to 15 to 30 years in prison.

The victim’s parents, John and Lori Janczewski, were shocked and outraged by the letters, as was the community at large, which rallied behind the family in calling for the teachers’ termination and the board member’s resignation.

The board member refused to resign, and despite multiple board meetings that drew hundreds of angry parents, the school board eventually decided to keep the teachers out of fear that their terminations would spark a First Amendment lawsuit.

In the end, parents of 87 student pulled their children from the school district over the ordeal, resulting in a roughly $600,000 loss in state per-student funding.

To add insult to injury, the local teachers union later filed a grievance against the school district in an effort to recover $10,000 early retirement incentive for Erickson, EAGnews reported.