SALEM, Ore. - In what Department of Human Services officials called a "horrible" case of child abuse, the parents of seven kids were sentenced Thursday to more than seven years in prison.
The state recommended five years for 40-year-old Oleksander Kozlov and 39-year-old Lyudmila Kozlov, but the Salem judge instead gave them the longer sentence of 7 years and three months, each.
The Koslovs were found guilty last week, of nine counts of child abuse. It was their own children who turned them in, calling 9-1-1 from their Lancaster Drive home and telling officers they had been abused since their family arrived in the United States from the Ukraine in 2003. Marion County deputies said they saw "significant evidence" of abuse on the 15, 14 and 13-year-old, and the kids were taken into protective custody.
Following that investigation, police and DHS officials went to the home and took four other children, ages 11, 10, 9 and a six-day old infant in to custody and arrested the couple.
The children told police the abuse sometimes involved hitting them with a looped wire, a belt, spoons, a leather leash or even sticks from the yard.
The two were charged with assault, criminal mistreatment, coercion and unlawful use of a weapon.
The couple's attorney said there will be an appeal to the seven-year sentence.
