Woman Sentenced for Sex With Youths

A 40-year-old Granada Hills woman was sentenced on Monday to five years probation for having sex with 10 teen-age boys, prompting the prosecutor to complain that women who commit sex crimes with minors are not punished as rigorously as men.

“If this was a man he absolutely would have gone to state prison,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Richman.

Faye D. Abramowitz faced a maximum sentence of seven years and eight months in prison after pleading no contest Monday in San Fernando Municipal Court to three counts of lewd conduct with a child and five counts of oral copulation with a minor. Judge Juelann K. Cathey, however, sentenced Abramowitz to five years probation and required her to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Outside the courtroom after the sentencing, Abramowitz maintained her innocence and claimed it was the boys who had raped her. She said she was afraid to report the incidents to police.

Richman dismissed the notion that Abramowitz was a victim, saying, “If she had said she was a rape victim during the trial, and the jury found that she was lying, I think the judge would have sentenced her to some jail time.”

Eliot B. Guterson, one of two lawyers representing Abramowitz, said he recommended that Abramowitz change her plea from not guilty to no contest--the legal equivalent of a guilty plea for criminal court purposes--to avoid the stress of what he said would have been a long trial.

“Justice was best served, despite all the media attention,” Guterson said of the sentence.

According to court records, Abramowitz invited boys ages 14 to 16 to a house she rented in Granada Hills and served them alcoholic drinks while showing them sex videos and then engaged in sex with them.

The incidents happened regularly for about a year until one of the boys told an adult, and police were called in April.

The case attracted attention because of the inconsistency of state statutory rape laws and other sex crime laws that apply only to male offenders. As a result, Craig said he could file only the lesser charges.

Richman said both the probation and psychiatric reports recommended that Abramowitz not be imprisoned, saying she needed psychiatric help but is not a danger to society.

“This is the continuing story of society’s attitude about male victims of sexual assaults,” Richman said. “The feeling is that this is no big deal. What we were trying to do is show that this is a bigger deal than people were making.”

At one of Abramowitz’s earlier court appearances, parents of some of the boys picketed the courthouse, demanding that the rape law be changed to cover sex by women with boys, as well as offenses by men against girls.