Child Molesters, Child Abuse Effects: Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Addictions

But before Senior U.S. District Judge William Standish imposed the 175-month term, a prosecutor revealed yet another twist in an already twisted tale of rape and child pornography in which three adults preyed on the girl in Penn Hills and Sharpsburg.

When Carroll was in jail in July 2003, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Miller, another inmate said Carroll tried to hire him to kill the girl, her foster mother and other witnesses.

The inmate said Carroll handed him a piece of paper with the girl's name and address and offered him $18,000 for the murder. Authorities had to move the family to another house.

For the girl, now 16, it was one more torment in a life of abuse that once nearly ended with a suicide attempt as the case wound through court.

"The child victim has touched all of our hearts; she's really one of the bravest people I've ever met," said Miller, a veteran sex-crimes prosecutor. "This child has had to fight her entire life for everything she has ... The beautiful years of her life were taken from her by her mother and Mr. Carroll."

Miller, whom Carroll had previously threatened to murder, ripped into him as someone with "no redeeming qualities whatsoever" and ridiculed his "crocodile tears" in pleading for mercy before the judge.

Carroll, 39, said he suffers from mental problems but told the judge he felt remorse.

"I just feel bad in general," he said. "I hope you're lenient."

The term was not the maximum Miller asked for, but it was more than federal Public Defender Penn Hackney requested. The debate was more convoluted than usual because of the decision this week by the U.S. Supreme Court to make federal sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory, allowing judges more discretion.

The sentence ends one of the most disturbing child-abuse cases prosecuted in recent years in U.S. District Court here.

Last year, the girl testified during a sentencing hearing for her mother, Sharon Dorsch, that her mother stood by and did nothing while Carroll sexually assaulted her over a two-year period beginning in 2000. Dorsch, a 44-year-old cocaine addict from Penn Hills, got the maximum of three years in prison.

In April, she and Carroll had pleaded guilty.

Their former landlord in Penn Hills, Gerald E. Goebert, 50, who had a conviction for sexually abusing his stepdaughter, also was part of the case. He was released in March after serving 27 months in prison for possession of nude photos of Dorsch's daughter, which he got from Carroll.

Carroll sexually abused the girl at a house on Howard Street in Penn Hills by drugging her with Dorsch's Valium pills, forcing her to have sex with him and making her watch him have sex with Dorsch.

He also took nude photos of the girl at a Sharpsburg apartment where he sometimes stayed.

Dorsch allowed the abuse to go on and even told the girl to cooperate because, she said, she was addicted to drugs and was herself being abused by Carroll.

Authorities first became involved with Carroll and Dorsch in 2001, when she called Penn Hills police to ask that Carroll be removed from her house because he was abusive. She obtained an emergency protection-from-abuse order to keep him away from the house. When he came back, officers arrested him.

Later the FBI and U.S. postal inspectors started investigating.

Carroll had lived with Dorsch off-and-on from 1999 through 2001. During that time, Carroll abused the girl repeatedly with Dorsch's help.

The abuse ended in August 2001 after Carroll raped the girl in the bathroom, beat her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

Miller told the judge yesterday that the girl is an "extraordinary person." After Dorsch gave birth to a child fathered by Carroll, Dorsch was too strung out on drugs to raise the baby, so the girl essentially took over the role as parent.

She is now in school, has a part-time job and is planning to go to college.

Last year, Miller said she asked her if she could ever forgive her mother. She told the judge the girl told her, "Right now, I can't forgive her. But someday I hope I can."