10 year Sentence Too Light for Woman who Rented Daughter to Pedophile

[ThetaPrincess24]

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — A federal appeals court tossed out the 10-year prison sentence of a St. Louis, Mo., woman who rented her 9-year-old daughter out to a pedophile more than 200 times at $20 a session.

The court said the woman's punishment was too lenient. But until a court decides otherwise, the woman still faces a 10-year prison term.

The woman, whose name is being withheld to protect her daughter's identity, often held the girl down in their home while Joe J. Champion of Granite City, Ill., molested her, according to court documents. The daughter testified the molestation occurred about twice a week, either in the bathroom or her mother's bedroom.

The woman was typically paid $20 by Champion each time she allowed her daughter to be abused by him.

The abuse began when the daughter was nine and continued for two years, both the daughter and Champion testified, according to court documents.

The mother also often threatened to send her daughter to foster care if she didn't cooperate, reported by the St. Louis-Post Dispatch.

"The factors of this case are no less than horrifying," Judge William Jay Riley wrote in the unanimous opinion released Monday by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals.

Champion pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The woman, convicted by a jury in 2003 of aggravated sexual abuse and conspiring with Champion to help him molest the girl, was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison — the minimum provided under federal sentencing guidelines.

She appealed. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in United States v. Booker that federal sentencing guidelines were not mandatory.

So, an 8th Circuit Appeals Court judges sent her case back to U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw, saying he might have given her a lighter sentence if he had known he wasn't bound by the federal guidelines. The court did not, however, recommend any particular sentence or a more lenient term.

But then Shaw in December sentenced the woman to 10 years, saying mental problems and drug addiction had influenced her behavior. The judge also noted that she had taken parenting classes, had vocational training and gotten her GED while in prison.

The judge said he did not believe the woman posed a danger to the public and was unlikely to repeat the actions, according to court documents.

Prosecutors appealed that sentence, claiming it was too light and the judge's reasoning was flawed.

The 8th Circuit appeals judges agreed Monday, saying the basis of her sentence is "unreasonable" and that the district court failed to "sufficiently consider the seriousness of the offense."

This "is a mother who, for $20, repeatedly (1) sold her minor daughter to a pedophile for sexual exploitation, and (2) physically participated and restrained her daughter so the pedophile could sexually abuse her.

"It would take a very compelling justification to reduce the sentence of a mother who submits her child to such abuse," the court said.

They said Shaw had failed to consider the seriousness of a case that was "no less than horrifying" and that Shaw had inappropriately reduced the woman's sentence. The opinion's author, Riley, also wrote that there was no evidence to support Shaw's conclusion that she would not again offer her daughter up for abuse.

The woman's "belated rehabilitative efforts are not extraordinary and do not support a sentence reduction," the court said.

The woman argued that her age, criminal history, and the fact that she never sexually molested her daughter indicate a very slim chance of recidivism. But, the court said Monday, "these arguments do not exculpate or lessen the horrendous treatment to which she subjected her minor daughter for money, nor do they indicate she would not commit this type of crime again in the name of money.

"Nothing in the record supports the district court's conclusion [the woman] probably will not repeat this type of crime," the court opinion read.

Riley also said that the woman's sentence was out of proportion with Champion's.

Kevin Schriener, the woman's attorney, said Tuesday he would ask for a rehearing of the appeal.

Schriener told FOXNews.com that the broader sentencing issues raised by the case likely would ultimately be decided at the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Claiborne v. United States. That case asks the court to decide whether a sentence that is below the guidelines is reasonable and whether a sentence that varies greatly from the guidelines must be justified by extraordinary circumstances.

Movement on that case likely won't happen until February.

"I think we've got a ways to go before we get there," Schriener said.

FOXNews.com's Liza Porteus and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[ThetaPrincess24]

This woman should be put in the fryer a long with the pedophile. The judge who sentenced this woman to 10 years should be fired. There is no excuse for this behavior. NONE!!!

[winnieb]

This story makes me sick to my stomach!

[Cardinal026]

What a horrible story...I can't believe that Judge Shaw would've considered a lesser sentence originally, saying that she would be unlikely to do it again. I believe in a lot of situations about giving people a second chance, benefit of the doubt, blah blah, but to sell your daughter over 200 times? I don't care if it can be proven that she would never do it again...the fact that she DID means she should be locked up MUCH longer.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Cardinal026

I don't care if it can be proven that she would never do it again...the fact that she DID means she should be locked up MUCH longer.

This points out a fundamental disconnect in how we view the criminal justice system - really, it's the difference between a system based on 'rehabilitation' and a system based on 'punishment' (driven by the ill-informed "paid his debt to society" notion).

In this case, it appears the initial sentence was based on a notion of rehabilitation, whereas this thread is out for justice via punishment. I'm not really sure which is correct, but that's the essence of the split.

[KSigkid]

Maybe it's because I'm just a 1L, but the timing of all this is weird to me. He was sentenced, Booker was decided, and then the sentence was reduced? That doesn't appear to be sound legal policy to me, but maybe I'm mixing up the time frame.

[Coramoor]

I would like to hear the argument for the benefit of rehabilitation. There might be some good reasoning behind it...but why let a person get away with their misdeeds for a hope of making them a functional person and introducing them back into society?

[honeychile]

I know of two women who were sold to pimps before they were teenagers. Neither of them ever entered the court system, as they truly believed that they belonged to their pimp. Both were fortunate enough to escape by the time they were 24 - over ten years of servitude. Both of the pimps are still on the streets, to my knowledge.

Frankly, I don't believe that rehabilitation for sex crimes exists. I know that dozens of aversion therapies have been tried, and none have worked - even attaching electrodes to genitalia of the offender. Even chemical castration still leaves the underlying problem, the hatred of women (or children), very much alive in the mind of the predator. Granted, I have very strong beliefs about this, having heard more about this type of crime than I ever intended, but I'd have no problem with capital punishment for a sexual offender.

[AnchorAlum]

Originally Posted by Cardinal026

What a horrible story...I can't believe that Judge Shaw would've considered a lesser sentence originally, saying that she would be unlikely to do it again. I believe in a lot of situations about giving people a second chance, benefit of the doubt, blah blah, but to sell your daughter over 200 times? I don't care if it can be proven that she would never do it again...the fact that she DID means she should be locked up MUCH longer.

Wow. I agree 100%
How in the world??? WHY is this judge still on the bench???

She's unlikely to do it again? And this is relevant HOW? Are murderers likely not to dig up their victims and kill them again?

This woman should be in prison for the rest of her life.

[Kevin]

Actually, funny enough, murderers have one of the lowest rates of recidivism of any class of criminals, yet their sentences are the most severe (or most permanent when they get the needle). In this particular case, what this mother did is on par, if not worse than (in my mind) killing another individual in a premeditated, willful, deliberate manner. On that note, the death penalty for this individual looks pretty attractive. In this case, it's not as if this mother has some sort of mental pathology (like many child molesters do). She's simply an evil person.

I agree with the Judge in that locking her up is unlikely to protect society because I don't envision her getting custody of her daughter back, therefore, recidivism isn't really an issue. Like with murder though (which as I said also has a very low recidivism rate), society does have an interest in severely punishing people like this.

[Munchkin03]

Well, no matter what she gets--does anyone really think that she'll make it in prison very long?

Women's prisons are full of women who want to be with their kids...do you think they're going to tolerate someone who willingly hurt her daughter?

I bet it was for crack, if not meth.