Abuser of girls "gifted" by their ex-Amish parents sentenced to prison
Lee Kaplan spent at least eight years sexually assaulting six underage sisters, starting with the oldest and taking each of them in succession as his “wives.”
For that, a Bucks County judge ruled Wednesday, Kaplan will spend 30 to 87 years in prison. <snip>
Beyond working in machinery and construction, Kaplan had studied aerospace engineering at Pennsylvania State University. He’d been a math and science tutor. And he’d spent “most of his life” working with children and college-aged people, including as a youth minister.
<snip>
Kaplan was convicted in June on 17 counts of child sexual assault for abusing the six oldest daughters of Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus, a formerly Amish couple from Quarryville, Lancaster County. The incidents began in 2008, according to trial testimony, and continued until June 2016, when a neighbor’s tip to the state child-abuse hotline led child-welfare workers and police to knock on Kaplan’s door. <snip>
Kaplan had taken all six girls as his “wives,” teaching them that it was a wife’s duty to have sexual relations with her husband. He had two children by the oldest daughter, now 19, who first gave birth at 14. <snip>
The Stoltzfuses, who have 14 children in total and allowed all 10 of their daughters except one to move in with Kaplan, were both sentenced to up to seven years in prison in July for child endangerment. Daniel Stoltzfus, 44, pleaded no contest. His wife, Savilla, 43, pleaded guilty and testified at Kaplan’s trial after also persuading her children, who had at first denied that Kaplan had sex with them, to tell authorities about their life in Kaplan’s home. The couple met Kaplan in 2002, and he aided them over the years as they left their Amish community, faced financial troubles, and lost their home. <snip>
When officials showed up at Kaplan’s home in June 2016, the windows were covered or nailed shut, the rooms sparsely furnished — Kaplan had the only bed — and the house filled with food and supplies. Kaplan and the Stoltzfus girls grew crops, raised catfish and bees, ran Kaplan’s model-train business — and never needed to leave the home. And Kaplan regularly brought the girls into his bedroom, in turns, and told them not to tell anyone.
The girls did not have any toiletries in the home and did not know how to wash their hair. They had been extensively educated by Kaplan, their mother, and with books and the internet; they all know how to play musical instruments.
Although they testified about the abuse, the girls also said at the trial they loved Kaplan and had been happy in his home.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/lee-kaplan-abuser-of-sisters-to-be-sentenced-wed-afternoon-20170920.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
