Drifter, Wife Get Prison Terms in Sex Slavery Case

A drifter and his wife who tortured, raped and starved a young Alaska woman for nine months as they traveled through Southern California were sentenced to state prison terms Tuesday in Pomona Superior Court.

The two earlier agreed to waive their right to a jury trial and pleaded no contest to various charges in exchange for diminished sentences.

If state prison officials follow Judge Sam Cianchetti’s recommendation, Theodore Glaum, 54, will spend at least part of his 14-year sentence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, where psychiatric treatment is available.

“His conduct reflects the need for long-term psychiatric therapy,” Cianchetti said.

Mildred Glaum, 37 was sentenced to nine years in state prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Joel P. Hoffman said the Glaums held hands tightly during their short appearance in court Tuesday. He said it will probably be the last time they will see each other until they get out of prison.

“If they went to trial, they would have gotten more time (in prison),” as much as 20 years for Theodore Glaum and 15 years for Mildred, the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Wong, said when the agreement was made last month.

Hoffman was filing in for Wong at Tuesday’s sentencing.

The Glaums were arrested in March, 1984, after Nickie Moeller, then 18, was found by police, emaciated and beaten, in the couple’s motor home, which was parked on an Irwindale street.

Moeller testified during a preliminary hearing in the case that the Glaums had parked the van outside an adult bookstore to seek customers for Moeller’s services as a prostitute. She testified that the Glaums had sold her as a prostitute frequently during her captivity.

Moeller also testified to being tortured by Theodore Glaum. She said she endured prolonged electric shocks from the motor home’s battery, the clipping of rubber bands and clothespins to various parts of her body, acts of sodomy while she was bound in a prone position with ropes, and painful beatings and kickings when Glaum became angry with her for failing to attract customers.

The young woman also testified that she had been denied food during the latter months of her captivity. She said she weighed about 165 pounds in May, 1983, when she met the Glaums at the US Festival rock extravaganza in Devore in San Bernardino County, but had dropped to 80 pounds by the time she was found by police.

The Glaums pleaded no contest to charges that included attempted murder by starvation, rape in concert, imposing involuntary sexual servitude, oral copulation by force, pimping and pandering. Theodore Glaum also was charged with sodomy.