Karen Sue Pulido, who was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping for her part in the February abduction and stabbing of a Baltimore businessman, was sentenced yesterday to 25 years in state prison by Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr.
The judge imposed a 25-year term for kidnapping and a concurrent 15-year term for armed robbery.
He told the 47-year-old Elkridge woman that he found her to be an "active participant" in the crime.
Pulido, 34, and her boyfriend, David Teddy Yoswick, 25, of Overlea, were charged in the abduction and stabbing of Frank Allen Storch, a private detective and real estate management company president.
Mr. Storch was found on Feb. 26 bleeding and limping along Arrington Road near Sykesville.
Yoswick pleaded guilty Aug. 25 to attempted first-degree murder and kidnapping. Judge Burns sentenced him to life in prison on the attempted murder charge and to 30 years for kidnapping. The judge suspended all but 40 years of the life sentence, which Yoswick will serve concurrently with his 30-year term.
During a two-hour sentencing hearing yesterday, Pulido and her attorney told Judge Burns that she was also a victim in the crime, helpless to act as Yoswick kept her and Mr. Storch under his control for more than 15 hours.
"Karen Pulido was reacting to a situation that was developing around her," said Assistant Public Defender Judson K. Larrimore. "She simply reacted to the situation. She didn't think about her actions."
Mr. Storch was abducted by Yoswick and Pulido and forced at gunpoint to endure a night of hell, prosecutors said.
He had been kidnapped the night before from a Howard County motel parking lot.
Yoswick and Pulido forced Mr. Storch to withdraw $3,500 from a bank machine at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, took him to Sykesville, stabbed him and submerged his head in a creek, then left him for dead when he went limp to fool them.
According to testimony by a psychiatrist during yesterday's 2-hour sentencing hearing, Yoswick attacked the businessman, who is a friend of Gov. William Donald Schaefer, after he became enraged on finding out that Pulido and Mr. Storch were involved in a relationship.
"She wanted to shield Frank [Storch], who she saw as a benefactor, as her future," said Dr. Lawrence J. Raifman, the psychiatrist who testified on Pulido's behalf.
Dr. Raifman also detailed years of neglect and abuse on the part of Pulido's mother. Pulido's adolescence, he said, was filled with drug abuse, prostitution, a failed attempt at a dancing career on Baltimore's Block, and years of sexual abuse at the hands of various boyfriends.
Pulido's sentence was not unexpected. When she entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors Sept. 24, she agreed to allow them to pursue a prison term up to 25 years for her.
In the bargain, Pulido pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping and armed robbery charges.
But she agreed to let the prosecution enter a statement of facts into the court record that contained sufficient evidence to convict her of those charges.
Prosecutors dropped 18 other charges, including attempted first-degree murder.