Tehachapi News

No-jail sentence for abduction angers father

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The father of two girls who were abducted by their mother in 2005 reacted with outrage Tuesday to the punishment she received.

Or more precisely, the lack of punishment.

“Five years probation? C’mon,” Chuck Brown said Tuesday, after the no-jail sentencing of his former wife, Tanya Diane Brown.

Tanya Brown, who hid five abducted children for three years in a remote mountain home near Tehachapi, was sentenced Tuesday to five years probation with no jail time.

Chuck Brown said the no-jail sentence will give a green light to other parents who may choose to kidnap their kids.

Tanya Brown, dressed in a black and white floral-print dress with a pink ribbon, remained silent throughout the hearing. She spent two days in custody after her arrest in February but has remained free on bail ever since.

Besides her probation requirements, Tanya Brown will be required to perform 100 hours of community service — half the number requested by the prosecution — and complete parenting classes, said Kern County Superior Court Judge Jerold Turner.

A “stay-away order” remains in place, barring her from visiting the five affected children, but Turner made it clear that family law court could modify that order at some future time.

“She is still a parent,” Turner said. “She has not been divested of her parental rights by virtue of this conviction.”

Brown pleaded no contest in May to two counts of felony child abduction. As a result of the plea agreement, several other charges, including felony kidnapping, were dismissed.

The probation sentence was agreed to by all parties in May as part of the plea deal.

Two daughters from a marriage to Brown, and three additional children from an earlier marriage to Matthew Densley, were found by authorities Feb. 13 at a home in a remote mountain community outside Tehachapi.

A break in the case came after the girls’ story was aired on “America’s Most Wanted.”
Early on, Tanya Brown and her family alleged that the children had been subjected to sexual abuse.

But those allegations have been fully investigated by multiple agencies and were found to be without merit, county prosecutor Ken Green has said.

The kids were obviously coached, he said.

All five children are now with their fathers, but the men have reported the kids are now one to three years behind in school, Green said.

Chuck Brown, who lives in Taft, said his daughters received no medical or dental care, were isolated socially and received little schooling during the three years with their mother.

“I think she possibly damaged two children — actually five children,” he said, his eyes welling.

“I always knew they would be found.”

Tanya Brown and her attorney, Dominic Eyherabide left court Tuesday without speaking to reporters.