Court Upholds Sentence In Sex-Ring Case Mother Got 40 Years After Pleading Guilty To Eight Counts Of Child Rape

The state Court of Appeals has upheld the 40-year sentence of a woman who pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree child rape in the so-called Wenatchee child sex rings.

In her appeal of the November 1994 sentence, Laura “Becky” Holt challenged the sentencing judge’s reasons for giving her an exceptional sentence well beyond the standard range of between 17-1/2 years and 23 years, four months in prison.

Her husband pleaded guilty to three counts of child rape and was sentenced in April 1994 to 14 years and two months in prison.

Judge John Schultheis, writing for the majority in a ruling issued Dec. 19, said Holt’s arguments were not persuasive. The Chelan County Superior Court judge’s reasons for the sentence were supported by the court record, and the factual basis for most of them came from Holt’s own statement to the police, the ruling said.

Holt had later tried to withdraw her statement, saying she was pressured by Wenatchee police Detective Bob Perez to confess, but that was not an issue in her appeal.

Among her reasons for appeal, Holt contended the court should not have considered her crime an abuse of discretion since she was charged with child rape, not the lesser crime of incest.

“These children were particularly and uniquely vulnerable and incapable of resistance against their parents, who established deviant sexual behavior as a family norm,” Schultheis wrote.

“The fact that (Holt) is the children’s mother, whose job it was to protect them from harm and to nurture their health and well-being, makes her abuse of their trust in this particular manner especially abhorrent.”

Holt also argued that since she was just under 35 when sentenced, a 40-year prison sentence was, according to insurance industry life expectancy tables, the equivalent to a life sentence, which is the maximum punishment.

The court said that logic would treat older criminals more leniently than younger ones on the basis of age alone.

Twenty-eight Wenatchee-area people were charged with child rape or molestation in the sex-ring investigation. Fourteen people pleaded guilty, five were convicted and charges were dismissed or greatly reduced against six others. Three people were acquitted.