A Columbia woman was sentenced Tuesday to 5½ to 12 years in state prison for prostituting her 11-year-old son to a woman twice the boy's age.

The 35-year-old mother took money from a York woman daily in exchange for sexual trysts with her son from August 2005 to December 2005.

The Intelligencer Journal is not naming the mother to protect the child's anonymity.

Lancaster County Judge Jeffery Wright scolded the mother for putting her drug addiction before "the safety of (her) own son."

"This was a crime of abuse and betrayal," Wright said.

The judge appeared irked by the mother's claim of innocence and her wishes to regain custody of her son. Wright called it an "utter lack of remorse."

"I can assure you that your son will be over the age of 18 before you have the opportunity" to regain custody, Wright told the woman.

Assistant District Attorney Karen Mansfield argued against the mother regaining custody.

The boy was "a criminal at her behest," Mansfield said, citing an attempted burglary that the woman prompted her son to commit.

Now that the boy is living with his father, he is an "A and B student," and member of his school's wrestling team, Mansfield said.

Defense attorney Andrew Spade spoke on his client's behalf because she is appealing a jury's verdict from September.

"She has and continues to maintain her innocence," Spade told the judge. "She never benefited from" the sexual encounters.

The woman has admitted her failure as a mother, Spade said, often allowing the boy stay out late and "run wild."

"She tried to be more of a friend than a mother," Spade said.

On his client's behalf, Spade asked Wright to only sentence the woman on the two lesser charges she was convicted of; not felony conspiracy to rape of a child.

Wright interjected, "So, she wants me to overlook a jury conviction?"

Later, Mansfield disputed the woman's request as "outrageous."

"She violated the most basic fundamental part of being a parent, for her own gain," Mansfield argued.

The woman who had sex with the boy, 25-year-old Ashley Banks, was sentenced last month to 2 to 4 years in state prison.

She was the prosecutors' key witness at the mother's trial. In exchange for that testimony, her attorney and Mansfield agreed to reduce a charge of rape of a child that had been filed by Columbia Borough police.

Banks was in love with the child and still has feelings for him, her attorney previously said.

Banks already has served 20 months in prison, but that could be deemed punishment for a probation violation at a later hearing. With such a ruling, Banks will serve at least two more years for the sex offenses.

E-mail: bhambright@lnpnews.com