A man who drove a 15-year-old Washington, girl across the country and treated her as a sex slave received a 10-year prison sentence and a lifetime of monitoring.
William Diehl, 44, of Aberdeen, Wash., was sentenced Tuesday in federal court. Diehl drove to Kensington and met the girl at a Maryland car dealership, and drove her across the country where she was raped repeatedly, prosecutors said.
“It?s been very emotional,” said the girl?s mother, Loretta Richardson, but the girl is doing well. “She?s done a complete turnaround. She?s doing much better. It?s a very positive story out of a very dark situation.”
She said her daughter changed schools after returning home in early March 2005 and is preparing to enter premedical studies in the fall.
Richardson?s willingness to speak out about her daughter?s ordeal has had a positive impact in her community, she said.
“After her being exposed, that brought a lot more attention to what has been happening with other girls at school and their activities,” Richardson said.
Diehl called the girl by a “slave name” and the teenage girl called him “master,” prosecutors said. Diehl also had a detailed written plan about kidnapping two 7- to 9-year-old girls and molding them into submissive slaves.
After The Washington Examiner reported on her disappearance and his arrest, Diehl?s brother reached out to the Richardsons to apologize for his behavior, and the Seattle-area papers picked up the story.
Diehl?s brother turned him in after his brother introduced the teenage girl as his fiancee. Police arrested Diehl in his Aberdeen apartment Feb. 17, 2005, just before her 16th birthday.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton told Diehl at the sentencing, “You are a parent?s worst nightmare.”
In a related case, Robert Celan Gilbert Jr. of Newport, Mich., was charged with possessing lewd images Diehl took of himself and the girl during the drive to Washington state.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
