Pearl Gosnell gets seven to 23 months

Pearl Gosnell portrayed herself as another victim of her husband's convincing, charismatic manipulation.

The judge saw things differently and sentenced her to seven to 23 months in prison Wednesday for choosing to be Kermitt Gosnell's "partner in this foul organization masquerading as a medical clinic."

Pearl Gosnell, 52, seemed stunned. She wiped away tears when Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner sentenced her to prison for her guilty plea to helping Kermit Gosnell perform illegal late-term abortions, conspiracy, and running a corrupt organization.

She had just spent an hour listening to Lerner sentence Adrienne Moton - a former clinic employee who lived for years in the Gosnell household - to time served and probation. Moton had pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for killing - as Kermit Gosnell instructed her to - a baby born alive during a late-term abortion at his Women's Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia.

"You're going home today," Lerner told the weeping Moton as her father, sister, and brother shouted "Hallelujah" from the courtroom gallery.

Despite Pearl Gosnell's five-minute speech excoriating her husband, now imprisoned for life, as a "coward," Lerner let her know early that she would be going to prison.

He said she was not like her husband's other employees, poor, uneducated, and emotionally troubled women whom Kermit Gosnell easily controlled.

"You were his partner," Lerner told her. "You chose to be his partner in life, and you chose to be his partner in this foul organization masquerading as a medical clinic."

Lerner let Pearl Gosnell surrender to prison in 30 days. With credit for time served before she was granted bail, she could be free to begin two years of probation in four months.

Though she pleaded guilty in December 2011 - 11 months after she, her husband, and eight clinic workers were charged with operating an abortion mill where babies born alive were killed - Pearl Gosnell stuck by her husband almost to the end.

The Gosnells have been married since 1991. She did not testify against him at the trial that ended May 15, when he was sentenced to three consecutive life terms for snipping the spines of three babies born alive during abortions.

In a brief statement read to Lerner, she introduced herself as "the wife of Kermit Gosnell. I am not happy about that now and have not been for a long time. By choosing to take the cowardly course that he did, my husband has left me to make the apologies."

She was referring to her husband's decision to reject an eleventh-hour plea deal offered by the District Attorney's Office in late February. The deal would have had him serve life in a federal prison and his wife and children retain possession of their West Philadelphia home.

By rejecting the deal, authorities say, it is likely that the house in the 600 block of North 32d Street - and a number of investment properties - will be seized by the federal government after a prescription drug trafficking case pending against the 72-year-old doctor is resolved.

Defense attorney F. Michael Medway argued that Pearl Gosnell was a "good person who did bad things." He called five witnesses who testified about Gosnell's willingness to shelter needy individuals in her own home.

Among those witnesses were Gosnell's biological children - Barron A. Gosnell, 21, a Cheyney University student, and Alexandra "Jenna" Gosnell, 15, an honors student at Masterman High School - and Sharita Kennedy, 26, who told Lerner that Pearl Gosnell brought her into the home and had raised her since she was 6 months old.

"My mom is a good person, she'd do anything for anyone in need," Alexandra Gosnell told Lerner. "I no longer have my father. Please don't take my mother too."

"She's been there for me," added Barron Gosnell. "We need her too. We need her there to take care of the family."

But Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore cited audiotapes of prison phone calls between Kermit and Pearl Gosnell in which she talked disparagingly of prosecutors, investigators, and her own children.

"I saw a different Pearl Gosnell," said Pescatore, who sought a prison term of nine to 23 months, telling Lerner that "she reaped monetarily off the backs of these poor women."

Pescatore's voice cracked and she wiped away tears as she praised Moton's decision to cooperate and testify against Kermit Gosnell.

Though Moton pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree murder for killing a newborn, Pescatore said "she was different, she got out of there."

Pescatore noted that in July 2008, Moton used her cellphone to photograph an infant known as Baby Boy A, who was born alive at 29.4 weeks and killed by Kermit Gosnell.

Moton's testimony and photo helped convict Gosnell of one of three counts of first-degree murder.

Moton, who has been in prison since her arrest in January 2011, made an impassioned speech to the judge - half anger at Gosnell, half anguish over her own acts.

"I'm burned out," Moton wept, telling Lerner that after she took the photo of Baby Boy A, "it took me two years to learn how to sleep in the dark again."

"I'm so glad I got arrested," Moton added. "I don't feel like I got arrested. I feel like I got rescued."