Salem Woman Who Molested Relative, Photographed Abuse, Gets 25 Years in Prison
By Helen Jung
Michelle Lee Freeman's instincts led her to kick her husband out of their Salem house after he confessed he had sexually abused a young relative of theirs. But her fundamentalist church pastor lectured her that she had done wrong by her husband and needed to let him come back home, said her lawyer, Nell Brown. And Freeman, a sexual-abuse victim herself whose ability to stand up to her husband had been worn down by nearly 20 years of emotional and verbal abuse, reunited with him, Brown said. Freeman kept her husband's abuse of the girl to herself. The decision would eventually lead to "the gradual erosion of Michelle Freeman's inner moral compass," Brown said. The wife soon not only photographed and videotaped her husband's sexual exploitation of the girl, then about 8 or 9, and the girl's younger sister, but also began sexually abusing the older girl herself for her husband's enjoyment. Freeman, 42, who pleaded guilty in August to production of child pornography, was sentenced to 25 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Garr King. The sentence was half the 50-year prison term that her husband, Michael Serapis Freeman, was given last week. Both husband and wife also face state charges in Marion County on sodomy and use of a child in a sexually explicit display.
The behavior and circumstances of the case are "absolutely outrageous," King said. But he added he does believe mitigating factors allow for a lesser sentence for Michelle Freeman than for her husband, who was the instigator. Had he not been around, the abuse and child pornography production would not have occurred, King said. Arguing for a sentence to match her husband's, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Kerin argued that Michelle Freeman not only failed to stop her husband, "a monster," from abusing young children, but "she became an abuser and a monster herself." He called on King to hand down a sentence that would serve as the "functional equivalent" of life in prison. "The law reflects our values as a society," Kerin said. Brown countered that Freeman's involvement was driven not by a desire to sexually abuse but by her desire to support her husband first and foremost as her faith dictated. A psychologist also testified Wednesday that Freeman presented a "negligible" risk of reoffending. And a friend of the Freemans told the judge he often witnessed the husband screaming at his wife and belittling her as part of an effort to control her. The Freemans were arrested in September 2012, after Homeland Security Investigations issued a nationwide alert asking for help identifying a woman who appeared in some of the hundreds of pornographic images with the two girls. Facebook friends of the couple saw the photo, and the Freemans contacted police and turned over evidence of their child-pornography production. Shortly before her sentencing, Michelle Freeman apologized, saying she hopes the two girls can heal from the pain she and her husband caused and that she wished she had stopped her husband when she first learned of the abuse. "I regret that I was not strong enough to trust that instinct," she said. hjung@oregonian.com
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