Child’s rape pays drug bill

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 8

Child’s rape pays drug bill

NZPA-AP Detroit A woman who settled a drug debt by allowing her daughter, aged 13, to be raped was sentenced to life in prison yesterday. Susan Barbier, aged 29, was convicted of firstdegree criminal sexual conduct, the charge for rape in Michigan, for giving her daughter to a man who raped her twice. The crime normally carries 10 to 25 years in prison, but the circuit judge James Rashid said Barbier gave “flagrantly false testimony” at her trial and showed no potential for reform. The man who raped the girl, Anthony Sawyer, aged 28, was convicted of the same charge and was sentenced last Thursday to 40 to 60 years in prison. Barbier had maintained her innocence at all times and had also claimed she had been punished enough because her children had been taken from her.

“That is not a punishment for someone with such little regard for her children,” Judge Rashid told her. “Your daughter trusted you and you abused that trust beyond all bounds of decency.” The prosecutor, Kelly Ramsey, said Barbier’s daughter called the 1988 rape “the worst hour of my life.” According to testimony by Sawyer, Barbier offered her daughter to satisfy a drug debt, then smoked “crack” a cocaine derivative, with Sawyer afterward. Barbier is eligible for parole in 10 years. tier former husband, Michael Dare, has been granted temporary custody of the victim. “This case demonstrates tragically the farreaching impact of drugs on innocent people,” the Judge said. “I have not heard of such a situation where drugs were responsible for a mother subjecting her own daughter to sexual abuse.”