Published: July 09, 2009 11:54 pm      

Craft gets 20 years in prison on sex charges

Judge affirms jury’s sentence

GREENUP — A judge on Thursday upheld a jury’s sentencing recommendation for a woman convicted in May of sexually abusing her children and of forcing them to perform sexual acts on two of her former boyfriends.

Greenup Circuit Judge Bob Conley sentenced Christina Craft, also known as Christina St. Clair, to 20 years in prison.

Craft, 30, of South Shore, was found guilty of seven charges — two counts of first-degree sodomy, three counts of complicity to commit first-degree sodomy and two counts of complicity to commit first-degree sexual abuse.

The jury gave Craft 20 years on each of the sodomy charges — the minimum for the offense — with the terms to run concurrently, and five years on each of the sex abuse charges, with those sentences to run concurrently with the ones for sodomy.

Craft passed on an opportunity to speak for herself at her final sentencing on Thursday, and no additional victim-impact statements were introduced.

Under state sentencing guidelines, Craft will have to serve at least 85 percent of her sentence — about 171/2 years — before she can be considered for parole. However, she will have to complete the state’s sex offender treatment program before she can begin earning time that will count toward her parole eligibility.

Craft also might have to spend additional time behind bars on an unrelated conviction.

According to assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Maridell Malone, Craft was convicted of receiving stolen property in August of last year and placed on probation for five years.

In light of her most recent conviction, prosecutors have filed a motion to revoke her probation and will ask the judge to run that sentence consecutively with the one for the sex charges, Malone said.

In convicting Craft, jurors found she made her daughters, who were 5 and 6 at the time of the abuse, place their mouths on her genitalia and threatened to punish them if they did not do likewise to her ex-boyfriends, Buford Henderson, 40, of South Shore, and Dustin Wood, 22, of Portsmouth. The victims’ testimony was the only evidence presented against Craft at trial.

Craft’s attorneys maintained the girls were coerced into making false allegations against their mother by their grandparents, with whom they were placed after the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services removed them from Craft’s home because of her refusal to end her relationship with Henderson.

The grandparents were awarded permanent custody of the girls and their younger brother in September 2007. Amy Craft, one of Christina Craft’s attorneys, argued at trial that the allegations against her client didn’t surface until Christina Craft said something to her children about trying to regain custody of them.

Henderson and Wood also have been charged with sodomy and sexual abuse. Malone said Thursday Henderson’s trial was scheduled to begin Aug. 3, but his attorney, public defender Steve Geurin, was planning to file a motion for a continuance. Wood’s trial is scheduled for Nov. 9, she said.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.