Woman Pleads Not Guilty to Seducing Boys

A 40-year-old Granada Hills woman pleaded not guilty Friday in San Fernando Municipal Court to charges that she seduced at least eight teen-age boys after providing them with alcohol and showing them sex videos.

Faye D. Abramowitz pleaded innocent to three counts of lewd conduct with a child and five counts of oral copulation with a person under 18. Commissioner Richard L. Brand scheduled a July 6 preliminary hearing on the charges.

“We have reviewed these rather extraordinary charges and we have pleaded not guilty,” Abramowitz’s attorney, Eliot B. Guterson, said outside the courtroom. He declined to comment further, except to criticize the “sensationalism” of the media coverage of his client’s case.

Abramowitz declined to comment.

She is accused of inviting boys--ages 14 to 16--to a house she rented in Granada Hills, serving them alcoholic beverages, showing videos and engaging in sex with them. The incidents allegedly happened regularly for about a year until one of the boys told an adult and police were called.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Richman said Abramowitz can be sentenced to a maximum of seven years and eight months if convicted. But he said his office is considering charging her with additional counts because at least three of the teen-agers may have been under 14 at the time of the acts, a circumstance that calls for harsher penalties. The additional charges could increase the sentence to 30 years, Richman said.

He said he wanted to charge Abramowitz with rape, but because state statutory rape laws apply only to female victims, he was forced to settle for charges of lewd conduct and oral copulation with a minor, which carry more lenient penalties.

“We tried to fit squares into circles and found some charges to file against her,” Richman said outside the courtroom.

At Abramowitz’s previous court appearances, parents of some of the boys picketed the courthouse, demanding that the statutory rape law be changed to cover boys as well as girls.