AKRON, Ohio -- Jimmy Lee Tayse, the Waterworks Mall kidnapper and rapist, most likely will die in prison.

Mr. Tayse, 31, barely flinched yesterday when a judge found him guilty of being a violent sexual predator and sentenced him to 73 years to life.

His victims said the punishment is fitting for the 14 felonies Mr. Tayse committed April 7, when he kidnapped a Pennsylvania woman and her 16-month-old daughter from the parking lot of Waterworks Mall in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Tayse jumped into the woman's Jeep Cherokee just after she finished her grocery shopping for an Easter meal that was never eaten. He put a knife to the baby's throat and demanded that the mother drive him out of Pennsylvania.

During the next 51/2 hours, Mr. Tayse raped the woman three times in Ohio, robbed her and held her baby as he forced the woman to withdraw money from cash machines.

The woman, from Fox Chapel, stood in court yesterday, just 15 feet from Mr. Tayse, and asked Common Pleas Judge Thomas Teodosio to impose the harshest possible sentence.

"Please grant us the peace of knowing he will not harm anybody ever again," she said in a strong, steady voice.

Her husband asked Judge Teodosio to impose a sentence that would keep Mr. Tayse locked up until he dies. The husband called Mr. Tayse a heartless criminal who derives pleasure from harming women and children.

"The greatest tragedy would be if he were allowed to do it again," the husband said.

The Cleveland policeman who arrested Mr. Tayse after he crashed the woman's Cherokee the day after the kidnappings also spoke. Officer Jeff Weaver, though, made his comments directly to Mr. Tayse.

"I've got to hand it to these folks," Officer Weaver said of the victims from Fox Chapel. "I couldn't sit in the same room with you."

Then he gave Mr. Tayse what amounted to a warning of what is in store for him in prison: "Do you know that rapists do the hardest time?"

Mr. Tayse stared at Officer Weaver, but said nothing.

A jury last month convicted Mr. Tayse of kidnapping, rape, aggravated robbery, felonious assault and grand theft. Even so, his lawyers hoped he might receive a sentence that would allow him to be paroled when he reached his 50s or 60s.

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh fought back by asking the judge to find Mr. Tayse guilty of being a sexual predator. With the predator designation, she knew Mr. Tayse could be imprisoned for life.

To bolster her case, Ms. Walsh produced court records showing that Mr. Tayse pleaded guilty in 1997 to sexual assault on a 12-year-old girl in Johnstown, Pa., his hometown.

Defense lawyers Scott Rilley and Donald Malarcik argued that the Pennsylvania conviction was not really a sexual assault. They said Mr. Tayse received probation instead of a prison sentence, so what he did could not have been a serious crime.

Mr. Tayse's story was that he had consensual sex with a girl who claimed to be 18 years old, but actually was in elementary school.

But Ms. Walsh produced another witness who testified yesterday that Mr. Tayse raped her more than 20 times when she was 11 years old.

The girl, now 16, said Mr. Tayse was living with her mother when most of the alleged rapes occurred.

"He said he would kill me if I told anybody," the girl testified.

The girl also said that Mr. Tayse kidnapped her after her mother had moved away from him. The girl testified that he held her in an apartment for two or three days, during which he raped her a number of times.

On cross-examination, Mr. Malarcik tried to shake the girl's story. He asked why she had not made her rape allegations to Pennsylvania State Police. He said the girl instead told police that Mr. Tayse had kissed and touched her.

The girl said Pennsylvania prosecutors had indeed filed rape charges against Mr. Tayse, but her family later urged her to drop the case. She testified that her mother and biological father had assaulted Mr. Tayse after finding out about the rapes. The girl said her parents were eager to end their own legal troubles, so they had no desire to pursue the rape charges against Mr. Tayse.

The girl's mother also testified. She said Mr. Tayse beat her so badly that she had to be hospitalized on three separate occasions.

Another time, she said, Mr. Tayse put a knife to her throat and ordered her to perform a sex act. She said she complied so he would not batter her again.

The defense contended that those allegations were never proven in court, so they should not be used as evidence to label Mr. Tayse a predator.

Ms. Walsh called Mr. Tayse a menace who had been charged in 70 criminal cases in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Johnstown, Pa., Detective Lawrence Wagner testified that his department had arrested Mr. Tayse 23 times in the last 11 years.

After considering the evidence, Judge Teodosio ruled that Mr. Tayse is a sexual predator who deserved life in prison.

Later, the kidnap victim and her husband embraced prosecutors and police officers who helped them. As they celebrated, Mr. Tayse, handcuffed and shackled, stepped into an elevator with sheriff's deputies, who took him to his cell.

First Published: October 31, 2007, 4:00 a.m.