PITTSBURGH – A school security guard accused of sex crimes with a teen runaway was ordered Thursday to stand trial after the woman described how he allegedly kept her in a small room in his house for a decade.
Thomas Hose and a neighbor and friend, Judith Sokol, are charged in the case of Tanya Nicole Kach. Sokol, who allegedly helped hide the girl, was also ordered Thursday to stand trial.
Kach, 24, surfaced March 21 and told police that she ran away from home in 1996 and had been living in Hose's house in McKeesport, not far from where she grew up, ever since.
She told police that Hose kept her in a bedroom in the small, two-story home where he lived with his parents.
Testifying Thursday, Kach recounted how she met Hose when she was an eighth-grader and had sex with him for the first time in early 1996 at Sokol's house.
She said Sokol, a hairdresser, cut and dyed her hair so people wouldn't recognize her.
Kach also testified that Hose threatened to kill her if she left, but acknowledged that Hose never physically restrained her.
She testified that there were times she wanted to leave and times she didn't, and that she even wanted to marry him at one point.
His attorney, Jim Ecker, said Kach had been free to leave.
Prosecutors allege Sokol was an accomplice because she provided Hose and the girl a place to have sex.
Her attorney, Angela Carsia, argued that Sokol was asleep at the time and never facilitated sexual contact between the two.
A criminal complaint filed Thursday added various child endangerment offenses to the sex crimes charges against Hose, 48, and Sokol, 57.
Both remain free on bond.
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