Calling it the “worst thing” she has ever seen, a disgusted judge in Ohio lambasted a woman after being found guilty of allowing her drug dealer to repeatedly rape her 11-year-old daughter in exchange for drugs to feed her addiction.
April Corcoran, 32, was sentenced to 51 years to life in prison for handing her defenseless daughter over to a drug dealer, who perpetrated months of horrible sexual abuse on the child.
According to police, Corcoran allowed the 40-year-old abuser to rape her child in every manner possible in exchange for drugs. The dealer even videotaped the sexual abuse, police said.
Corcoran “didn’t have the means or the cash to buy her heroin anymore from her drug dealer. … So she offered up her child in return,” Assistant Hamilton County prosecutor Katie Pridemore said during the trial.
Hamilton County Pleas Court’s Judge Leslie Ghiz was utterly disgusted by the revelations at the trial. “I can honestly say that, in three-and-a-half years on the bench, this is by far the worst thing that has come before this court,” Ghiz said.
“You showed no kind of mercy,” the judge added. “I don’t know that you grasp the damage that has been done to this poor child.”
The prosecutor also noted that the suspect often tried to induce the child to take heroin after the rape sessions to take away the pain delivered upon the girl. The monstrous mother reportedly told the child she was a “good girl” and “did the right thing” and that the drugs were a “reward” for allowing the drug dealer to have sex with her. Pridemore added that the child usually vomited after the drugs were forced upon her.
The child’s grandmother insisted she was shocked by what the child lived through.
“I saw my granddaughter. I heard her small voice,” the grandmother said. “It was horrific. How could she (Corcoran) do this? I don’t know if my granddaughter is going to be able to have a normal life.”
In an earlier press release on the case, Hamilton County prosecutor Joseph T. Deters remarked on how shocking the case was. “As a parent,” Deters said, “it is hard to imagine how you could use your child to satisfy your drug addiction.” He added:
Even after all my years as a prosecutor, I continue to be amazed at how badly parents treat their children.What this little girl endured is unimaginable and I can only hope that mom and drug dealer’s prosecution and intense counseling will help this child regain some trust in the world. This case is Exhibit A for how devastating heroin is to our communities.
For her part, the abusive mother claimed she felt bad about her actions. “I made selfish, horrible choices that will affect [my daughter] for the rest of her life,” Corcoran said in the courtroom. “I am consumed by guilt and shame every day.”
Corcoran pleaded guilty in June to several counts of complicity to rape, human trafficking, and endangering a child.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.