Man Pleads Guilty In Sex Slavery Case
By Herbert Lowe, Staff Writer
Originally published in Newsday, October 31, 2001
An Astoria man pleaded guilty yesterday to raping a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl involved in a Long Island cyber-kidnapping and sex slavery case.
Acting State Supreme Court Judge Deborah Stevens Modica accepted Michael Montez' plea to first-degree rape and will sentence him on Nov. 19 to 9 years in prison without parole. He had faced a maximum of 25 years on the rape charge.
"This is a lengthy sentence for someone to serve as a first-time offender," Assistant District Attorney Lucinda Suarez said after the hearing in Kew Gardens State Supreme Court.
"This is a serious crime and justice is served. It would have been very difficult for the victim to have to relive this horror in court."
Montez, 35, admitted raping and holding the girl hostage in his apartment over two days in August.
He also said in court that James Warren of Hampton Bays and Beth Loschin of Farmingdale brought the girl to him and that the victim was tied up when they returned for her.
Authorities allege that Warren and Loschin met the girl in an Internet chatroom, picked her up on Aug. 3 at a mall in Wrentham, Mass., where she worked, and immediately handcuffed her once in their car.
The couple drove the girl to a hotel in Rhode Island, where they both sexually abused her before taking her to Loschin's home. Four days later, they took her to Montez' place at 25-91 38th St., "loaning her out," according to a criminal complaint filed in Queens.
The girl, whose name is being withheld because she was a sex-crime victim, was freed on Aug. 10 after calling police on her cell phone.
Warren, 41, and Loschin, 46, were charged with sex crimes in Nassau County. Queens prosecutors said federal prosecutors are deciding whether to take over the case because the girl was allegedly taken across state lines.
As part of the Queens plea agreement, Modica dismissed three counts of kidnapping against Montez. In addition to prison, he will serve 5 years probation.
