American mom sentenced to six years as sex offender for improper contacts with 8-year-old boy

A woman was sentenced to six years in prison Friday for having repeated sexual contact with her daughter's 8-year-old playmate, once sending him a love letter that said "I want you!"

Tammy Imre, 30, apologized during the hearing. "I'm truly sorry for everything," she said.

She had pleaded guilty to two counts of risk of injury to a minor, a reduced charge that the boy's family accepted to spare both children time on the witness stand.

Imre was arrested last November on sexual assault charges after the boy's mother found Imre's letter to her son.

According to police, Imre told the boy in the letter that she didn't "want anyone but you. Now tomorrow it's supposed to rain, you can come over we can (you know what). Love ya! I want you!"

Imre admitted engaging in sexual acts with the boy but said it stopped short of sexual intercourse.

"When this was first in the paper, it was almost a joke, because of the role reversal," prosecutor Cornelius Kelly said. "It conjures up thoughts of, 'Oh, that's a young man's dream.' But as we stand here today, we still don't know what damage this will have on the young boy's self-esteem, his interpersonal relationships. We don't know what damage the young girl suffered."

Imre's daughter, who witnessed some of the acts, is now in foster care, authorities said.

The boy's mother told the judge that Imre "has hurt a lot of innocent people, including her own daughter, who not only lost her mother but (also) her best friend, who was my son."

Defense attorney Donald Papcsy said Imre had been raped and has a mental problem that made it hard for her to understand that what she did was wrong.

"She's not a wicked person," he said.

Besides the prison term, Imre was sentenced to 10 years' probation, when she must register as a sex offender, AP reported. V.A.