A hairdresser was jailed yesterday for helping a middle school security guard maintain a secret sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl he held captive for a decade.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge John A. Zottola sentenced Judith C. Sokol, 59, of Duquesne, to six to 23 months in jail plus four years' probation after she failed to explain a discrepancy in her statements about whether she knew that family friend Thomas J. Hose had sex with Tanya Kach in Ms. Sokol's bedroom.

In June, Ms. Sokol pleaded no contest to charges of aiding and abetting statutory sexual assault, interfering with custody and endangering the welfare of a child, and corruption of minors. Police said she cut and colored the girl's hair to help conceal her identity.

Mr. Hose pleaded guilty in June to a single count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. After Ms. Kach, now 25, read her former captor a letter at the hearing stating "you took away my innocence," Judge Zottola sentenced him to five to 15 years in prison.

Ms. Kach did not attend yesterday's sentencing. Attorney Lawrence Fisher, who represents her in a pending civil lawsuit against both defendants, McKeesport Area School District, the school security company and others, said Ms. Kach was studying for final exams and "was not interested in having her time wasted by Judy Sokol."

The reappearance of Ms. Kach made national headlines in March 2006. She'd gone missing in February 1996 as an eighth-grader at Cornell Intermediate School.

A decade later, a 24-year-old who'd been using the name "Nickie" confided in the owners of a McKeesport convenience store that her real name was Tanya Kach and she'd been living under lock and key with an older man and his parents since she was a minor. The owners called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and a county sheriff's deputy who'd been investigating the cold case for years.

Ms. Sokol yesterday declined her right to speak prior to sentencing. Judge Zottola urged her to do so, saying, "You have some explaining to do."

Ms. Sokol admitted to detectives she had knowledge of Mr. Hose's scheme, the judge said, but she later told presentence investigators she did not know Mr. Hose had a relationship with the girl. Ms. Sokol shook her head vigorously as the judge read a police summary of what she'd allegedly told officials she knew.

Ms. Kach had stated at a preliminary hearing that Mr. Hose had sexual relations with her in Ms. Sokol's bedroom while Ms. Sokol was sleeping. Ms. Sokol said yesterday she had no idea whether the girl's story was true.

"Does she want to withdraw her plea?" the judge asked defense lawyer Angela Carsia. He granted a recess for the defendant to consider whether she wanted to go to trial.

After the break, her lawyer said Ms. Sokol wanted to stick with her no contest plea because, though she didn't admit to wrongdoing, she thought it would be difficult to mount a case given the state's evidence against her.

"Ask her, did she do the little girl's hair or not?" the judge said.

"She could have been a regular customer for all I knew," Ms. Sokol said. "I'm confused on the way things were. I did not know a lot of this. It seems like I'm damned no matter what.

"I've done hair all my life. I would never dye a girl's hair to change her identity," she said.

"Do you wish to be sentenced or do you want to withdraw your plea?" the judge asked again.

"She wants to continue," Ms. Carsia said. The lawyer and her client had hoped for a mitigated sentence of probation or, at the most, house arrest.

After the judge sentenced the hairdresser to jail, a sheriff's deputy snapped on handcuffs and led Ms. Sokol down a hallway to an elevator. Her son, Brandon Sokol, chased her down the hall and told a crowd of reporters that jailing his mother was absurd.

"She's a victim of circumstances," said Mr. Sokol, 29. "She did not know that [Thomas Hose] snuck into the house." He said his mother is bipolar, has Legionnaires' disease and memory problems.

"She cuts millions of people's hair. She doesn't ask for name, rank or serial number."