Maybe, after being sent away at age 19, he is stuck in a teenage time warp. Maybe he just couldn't keep his trousers zipped. Maybe the State Bureau of Investigation is out to get him.

I'd say it's a combination of the three. This week, Gell was sentenced to five years for taking indecent liberties.

If that seems harsh for indecent liberties, it is.

Department of Correction data show that Gell got a longer sentence than 75 percent of the people convicted of the same crime this year -- nearly half of whom got only probation.

This, even though there were no aggravating circumstances in the Gell case. This, even though the Gell case involved a consensual relationship and neither the victim nor the victim's mother wanted Gell prosecuted. Rather, they want him out, to be a father to his year-old son.

The refreshing thing is that Gell admits that what he did was wrong. That's something the state has never done, even after fabricating and withholding evidence that nearly led to his execution for a 1995 murder. Instead the state spent untold thousands retrying what a jury quickly decided was a bogus murder charge.

The original prosecutors got a little scolding from the N.C. State Bar. And the local police department paid Gell $93,700.

An SBI agent, however, is still being sued by Gell. And guess what? It's that agent's boss who pursued this sex case against Gell. Coincidence? You bet.

The district attorney in Bertie County said this week that she demanded prison time for Gell because he knew his girlfriend was 15 when they got involved. True enough. She also claimed that Gell was taking advantage of the girl while she and her sisters were being molested by their father.

But the girlfriend and her mother both say Gell learned about the abuse when the mother did. In fact, he drove them to the sheriff's office the next day to file charges. That is when he resurfaced on the SBI's radar screen.

At the time, the girl didn't know whether the baby she was carrying belonged to Gell or her father. But, according to the girl and her mother, the SBI wanted to talk more about Gell than about the father who had been assaulting his three daughters. (He's now serving 13 years.)

The girl said the SBI warned her that Gell might hurt her or the baby, even though Gell had never threatened her in any way. He was playful, not hateful, she said. But the SBI arranged for a law enforcement escort when the girl visited her doctor, she said, and offered to post security at the hospital while she gave birth. Nothing like our tax dollars hard at work.

But if that seems like a waste of tax money, consider this: For the next several years, taxpayers are going to be paying for Gell's room and board in prison. Meanwhile, the girlfriend, now 17, figures she'll have to apply for public assistance. Gell, after all, is locked away and unable to support his child.

This makes sense to ... whom?

Gell is paying a heavy price for his mistakes. But it seems to me that we, the taxpayers, and Gell are paying for the state's mistakes as well.