Care worker who abducted five-year-old Muslim girl jailed for at least 40 years

A former day care worker convicted of dressing in traditional Muslim clothes in order to abduct a five-year-old girl, has been told she will spend at least 40 years in jail. Prosecutors said 22-year-old Christina Regusters wore the clothes and veil to impersonate the girl’s mother and take her from her Philadelphia 

classroom. She later sexually assaulted the child, after taking her in January 2103.

On Monday, Regusters apologised in court and insisted was not "a monster". The child was found half-naked but alive, the following morning.

“I’m asking for your forgiveness,”
Regusters said, according to the Associated Press. “I am sorry. Although you may not take it, I apologise.”

The girl, now aged eight, told the court in Philadelphia: “I think what she did to me was wrong, and I think she shouldn’t do it to anyone else."

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Minehart, who said Regusters' crimes were “like a horror show,” sentenced her to 40 years to life in prison.

Regusters, a former worker at the daycare the girl attended, had maintained her innocence during the trial. Her lawyer, Fred Harrison, said others were involved in the abduction and assault.

“The evidence pointed to her and her alone,” said the prosecutor, Erin O’Brien.