A man holds on to a prison bar inside of a jail cell. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
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VALPARAISO, Ind. (STMW) – At the age of 17, April Kuchta has been sentenced to three years in adult prison for tying a teen boy to a chair naked against his will.
The Valparaiso girl has served about 287 days in Porter County Jail since the April 9 incident, about a quarter of the sentence she received Friday. Good time credit could cut her sentence in half, which would make the time she’s already served equal about half the sentence. Judge William Alexa noted Friday that if Kuchta earned a GED in prison, she could get another six months taken off the sentence.
However, he also chastised her for her criminal record, which he reviewed before accepting her Oct. 11 plea. She had enough incidents to fill three pages by the time she was arrested for the current crimes at 16 years old.
Kuchta pleaded guilty to two felony charges, Class C felony criminal confinement and Class D felony intimidation. Her plea came at the last-minute, before a scheduled Oct. 17 trial, and because neither of the charges she pleaded to involves sexual wrongdoing, she won’t have to register as a sex offender after she gets out of prison.
She originally faced 20 to 50 years in prison on a Class A felony charge of criminal deviate conduct, and she was charged with three other felonies, criminal confinement, sexual battery and intimidation. The county held her without bond.
The Porter County prosecutor also charged a 14-year-old girl involved in the case with Class B felony confinement and Class C felony intimidation, as well as Class A misdemeanor battery. But that girl was sent to a state reformatory and not charged as an adult.
The two girls repeatedly texted a developmentally disabled 17-year-old boy, asking him to come to Kuchta’s home, court records state. Once he was there, they held him at knifepoint, handcuffed him naked to a chair and poked him with the knife. They took pictures and video with a cell phone, and the boy told police Kuchta touched him sexually.
The girls then had a party where the boy was freed twice by guests, but Kuchta threatened him with the knife to get back into handcuffs, and someone bit his arm.
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