SAN FRANCISCO -- A man convicted of the kidnap and the sexual abuse of a 3-year-old girl kept prisoner in his van has been sentenced to 527 years in state prison on 100 separate counts.
Luis 'Tree Frog' Johnson, 34, theoretically would not even become eligible for parole consideration until he served half of his sentence.
Johnson, 34, and Alex Cabarga, 19, were convicted last month of 193 counts stemming from the kidnap of 3-year-old Tara Burke from a Concord parking lot and the sexual abuse of her and an 11-year-old refugee Vietnamese youth also held captive by the defendants.
Judge Robert Dossee, in passing sentence Thursday, called Tara's ordeal a crime against 'civilization.'
The judge remanded Cabarga to the California Youth Authority for psychiatric evaluation and ordered him to return for sentencing March 28.
The child was kidnapped from her parents' auto in a Concord shopping center in February 1982. She was rescued 10 months later in San Francisco after Mac Linn, the Vietnamese boy, escaped and led police to the van, where Tara was found nude and huddled under a blanket.
Lin testified that during the nationwide search for the blonde-haired Tara, she was kept by the two men in Johnson's putrid van in the back streets of San Francisco's South-of-Market warehouse district.
During the sordid trial, two home movies and hundreds of pictures of Tara and the boy engaged in sex acts were confiscated from the van. The boy testified Johnson took the photos and that both men sexually abused the children.
'The victims are not only the Burke family and little Mac Linn, but I think civilization is also a victim in this case,' Dossee said.
Before passing sentence, Judge Dossee heard a dramatic plea from both parents urging the maximum sentence.
The parents told the court that their daughter had nightmares, woke up screaming and slept with them for almost six months after returning home.
The father, Steve, a West Pittsburg, Calif., piano turner, said the family is in danger of losing its home because customers are reluctant to have him in their houses.
The entire family, including Tara's older brother, Jeremy, remains in psychological therapy, Tara's mother said.
