A Clearfield woman will spend close to 20 years in prison for taking pornographic pictures of her young daughters and e-mailing them to her husband overseas.
The 7- and 9-year-old girls were alone in some of the photographs, and in others their mother appeared with them. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart saw some of the explicit images Thursday afternoon, shortly before he sentenced Dee Dee Williams to 235 months in federal prison.
Williams, 29, cried throughout the hourlong hearing, at times putting her head on the table and sobbing.
"Not a moment goes by that I don't regret what happened," Williams said. "I love my children and I know I will probably never see them again because of what I've done. I take full responsibility for what I participated in.
"I know it was wrong. I knew it was wrong when I done it, but I didn't stop it," she said. "I have no excuses for why it happened and how it happened. I'm sorry."
Paul Jeffery Williams, Williams' husband and the girls' stepfather, was sentenced in July to 27 years behind bars.
Defense attorney Richard Mauro asked Stewart to grant Williams leniency on a number of factors, including granting her credit for accepting responsibility for her actions, finding that she was a minor participant in the crime and determining her actions were aberrant behavior.
Mauro also argued Williams suffers from dependent personality disorder, which left her in a position to be manipulated by her husband into participating in the activity.
"The one thing that is clear to me is that Mrs. Williams loves her children," Mauro said. "Prior to this, she was a very good mother."
Had the judge granted all of Mauro's motions, Williams' sentence could have been reduced by up to nine years. However, Stewart found only that Williams had accepted responsibility for her actions and granted a slight reduction in light of that finding.
Stewart sentenced Williams to the maximum possible penalty under federal sentencing guidelines. He said Williams "had an out" from the situation, especially when her husband, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, was stationed at Korea's Osan Air Base.
"It's apparent that she simply was doing whatever was necessary to satisfy her husband," Stewart said.
In asking Stewart to order the maximum time, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Christiansen noted how rare it is to see women, let alone mothers, involved in sexual abuse cases.
"This woman is the mother of these children. As such . . . she has a higher duty to protect them and look out for their well-being," Christiansen said. "She made a conscious choice to protect her relationship with her husband rather than to protect her children."
The couple was also charged with multiple first-degree felony charges in state court. Paul Jeffery Williams was sentenced last month to five years to life in prison. Dee Dee Williams faces the same punishment when she is sentenced later this month.
E-MAIL: awelling@desnews.com