Beautician sentenced in missing girl case

PITTSBURGH - A former Duquesne hairstylist denied Wednesday that she helped conceal the identity of an Elizabeth Township runaway held captive for 10 years by a school security guard.

Judith Sokol, 59, was sentenced to six to 23 months in jail after pleading no contest to reduced charges for allowing Thomas Hose, 50, to use her home to have sex with Tanya Kach, who ran away at age 14.

Police said Sokol altered Kach's appearance by coloring and cutting her hair.

"She could have been a regular customer for all I know," Sokol told Common Pleas Judge John A. Zottola. "I would never dye a young girl's hair to change her identity. I have children of my own."

Sokol said she was not aware Hose used her house to have sex with the girl. Zottola asked why she earlier admitted to police that she was aware of Hose's actions.

"When I was asked questions, I was confused. Everything was twisted and turned around," Sokol said.

Zottola sentenced Hose in June to five to 15 years in prison. Kach, who read an angry letter to Hose at that hearing, did not appear in court yesterday.

Sokol's son, Brandon, 29, said it is absurd to jail his mother. Hose was a family friend and sneaked Kach into the house without anyone's knowledge, he said.

"She's a victim of the circumstances," said Brandon Sokol, who lives with his mother. "She did not know he snuck her into the house. Tom Hose is the culprit."

Kach told police Hose held her captive in his parents' house, where she was forced to urinate in a bucket and was let out only twice a week to shower in the basement. In summer 2005, she was allowed out of the house on her own for shopping trips and to attend church, she said.

She eventually told her story to a McKeesport deli owner who called police.

"What she failed to say was, 'I'm sorry,'" Kach's attorney, Lawrence Fisher, said of Judith Sokol.