San Diego

Confessed madam Karen Wilkening was sentenced Wednesday to three years and eight months in prison for pandering and conspiring with her former lawyer to flee the country to avoid charges of operating a high-class call-girl ring.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Jesus Rodriguez rejected the prosecution’s request for a six-year, eight-month term for Wilkening, 43, formerly of Linda Vista.

She was fined $1,500 and given credit for her time in custody since she was arrested and extradited from the Philippines in May, where she had lived since fleeing a preliminary hearing in September, 1987.

She also had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, the same charge her former lawyer, Buford Wiley, pleaded guilty to on Oct. 6. Wiley will be sentenced Dec. 7 and faces a year in jail and the loss of his license to practice law.

Wilkening’s attorney, Stephen Carroll, urged that the minimum term be given, saying her offense “amounts to essentially a prostitution service.”

“The customers were well-placed in the business community,” he said. “The victims were willing participants, if you can call them victims.”

Wilkening has testified before the county grand jury in connection with the slayings of 42 women--mostly prostitutes--whose bodies have been found dumped in North and East County since 1985.

At the time of her extradition, police said they went to the extraordinary effort to locate her in the Philippines because they thought she might have information on the serial murders. She has denied any knowledge about those crimes or that she even knew any of the victims.