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CANTON, N.Y. (AP) — The New York couple who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexually abusing two Amish girls in 2014 have been sentenced to 25 years in state prison less than a month after being sentenced to hundreds of years of federal incarceration.
Forty-year-old Stephen Howells and his 26-year-old girlfriend Nicole Vaisey were sentenced Tuesday in St. Lawrence County Court for pleading guilty to kidnapping charges filed by state authorities.
On Dec. 17, the two were sentenced in federal court in Syracuse for pleading guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to sexually exploit minors. Howells was given a 580-year sentence while Vaisey was sentenced to 300 years.
Both have appealed their federal sentences.
The couple admitted to sexually abusing young six children, including two Amish sisters they abducted from a roadside farm stand in northern New York in August 2014.
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