Captors Sexually Abused Amish Girls: DA

Nicole Vaisey's lawyer claims she was in abusive relationship
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2014 9:30 AM CDT
Captors Sexually Abused Amish Girls: DA
In this Friday, Aug. 15, 2014 photo, deputies escort Nicole F. Vaisey, left, and Stephen M. Howells II, to their arraignment on first-degree kidnapping charges at Fowler Town Court.   (AP Photo/Watertown Daily Times, Melanie Kimber Lago)

The two Amish girls kidnapped from a roadside farmstand in Upstate New York were sexually abused by their captors, St. Lawrence County DA Mary Rain confirms to the Syracuse Post-Standard. Stephen Howells, 39, and 25-year-old girlfriend Nicole Vaisey have each been charged with two counts of kidnapping; it's unclear if they'll face further charges in the case. An attorney for Vaisey, however, is wasting no time in distancing her from Howells. "She appears to have been the slave and he was the master," Bradford Riendeau tells the New York Times. "She was not the lead person or a coequal in this at all." Rains is not buying that argument, countering that "We are confident that she was equally involved in the allegations as he was." (More Amish stories.)

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