A depraved Oklahoma man who kidnapped and repeatedly raped his stepdaughter while holding her in captivity for nearly two decades has been sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said.
Henri Michelle Piette, who was convicted in June of kidnapping and traveling with intent to engage in a sexual act with a juvenile, was sentenced on Feb. 20 after a seven-day trial detailing the nearly two decades of abuse he inflicted upon Rosalynn Michelle McGinnis, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced Tuesday.
Authorities said Piette kidnapped McGinnis at age 12 from a home she shared with her mother in Poteau, Oklahoma, and then held her captive while fathering nine children with her, including two while she was under the age of 18.
Witnesses testified Piette, 65, proceeded to move McGinnis and the children dozens of times throughout the United States and Mexico before she escaped in July 2016 and went to the United States Consular General Offices in Nogales, Mexico, prosecutors said.
“Life in prison is a sentence the law reserves for the most serious offenders — offenders like Henri Michelle Piette,” US Attorney Brian J. Kuester said. “For 20 years he inflicted extreme physical and emotional abuse on the victim and her children. For 20 years she feared for her and her children’s lives.”
Piette’s “reign of terror” was ended solely by McGinnis’ courage to break away, Kuester said.
“Unfortunately, the horrific memories may very well last a lifetime,” Kuester said. “It is fitting that the defendant’s sentence will also.”
In November, McGinnis, 34, appeared on Dr. Oz to share the horror of her captivity, recalling how she befriended a couple at a supermarket in Mexico prior to her escape.
“They asked, conversation on where we lived,” McGinnis said. “It started like that. Henri was the type that always kept people away. But they knew something wasn’t right. So, they decided to do something about it.”
The couple secretly offered to help McGinnis, who later went to their home after Piette passed out from drinking. The pair then found a missing person’s report on the woman and helped her get to the consulate, she said.
During her time in captivity, Piette forced McGinnis to take measures to conceal her identity, including the use of several aliases, dyeing her hair and making her wear glasses, prosecutors said.
Piette also told the couple’s nine children that they were “animals,” McGinnis recalled.
“He would hit him and then I would step in and it would be just horrible,” she said in November. “Any kind of abuse that you can think of, he did to me.”