Outrage Over Four-Year Plea Deal in Long Island Sex-Torture Case
By Brad Hunter and Leonard Greene
Originally published in the New York Post, November 25, 2001
Victims groups have slammed the four-year jail sentence given to Long Island kink queen Beth Loschin—even though it saved her traumatized teen victim from testifying twice.
Loschin, 46, claims she was head over heels in love with her slave master, James Warren, 41, and committed her heinous crimes to please him.
The divorced mother of two pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting and sodomizing a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl last August. Loschin claimed she was "forcibly" made by her lover to commit lewd acts on the girl.
As part of her plea deal, Loschin was released on bond to spend Thanksgiving with her family before beginning her sentence.
Victims groups say the sentence is too lenient and insults the teen victim rather than helping her overcome her trauma.
"Judges and jurors and prosecutors tend to see teens as having contributed to their victimization," said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center.
Despite the growing numbers of female sex offenders in the nation's prisons, courts still hesitate on gender equality when it comes to jail sentences, Finkelhor said.
"Women tend to get lower sentences for equivalent crimes," he said. "They're seen as easier to rehabilitate."
Cops say that Loschin, a matronly single mom from Farmingdale, accompanied her boyfriend Warren when they kidnapped the girl from a mall in the Bay State after Warren had met her in an online chat room.
Police say the pair then abused the terrified teen in a variety of twisted sadomasochistic games, which involved bondage and hot wax.
They also "lent" the girl overnight to another man, Michael Montez, 36, who raped and tortured her and locked her in a closest. Montez was sentenced to nine years in a plea bargain settled Oct. 31.
Nassau County Assistant DA Gregg Turkin defended the plea deals. He said his office didn't consider Loschin's sentence light and contended that it was "consistent" with the evidence.
