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The girls, aged 12 and 7, were kidnapped on Wednesday from a
family farm stand some 10 miles (16 km) from New York's border
with Canada and released Thursday. Police have charged two
suspects, Stephen Howells II, 39, and Nicole Vaisey, 25, with
two counts each of first-degree kidnapping.
In remarks to the New York Times late on Saturday, St. Lawrence
County District Attorney Mary Rain said the girls had suffered
sexual abuse during their captivity at Howells' home in Hermon,
New York. She did not elaborate.
The victims' names are being withheld due to the sexual assault
allegations.
Earlier on Saturday, St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells
said at a news conference that the couple had carefully planned
the abduction and that the girls were kidnapped not because they
were Amish but because they were easy targets. The girls did not
know their kidnappers, he said.
He said police had reason to believe that in helping to lead
authorities to their captors, the girls had most likely
prevented more kidnappings.
A preliminary hearing for Howells and Vaisey is set for
Thursday, officials said. Federal charges could be filed at a
later date, officials said.
The girls were returned home in good health on Thursday after
their captors dropped them off in front of a stranger's home in
the hamlet of Bigelow, then fled, Rain previously said.
The man living at the home recognized the pair as the missing
girls and drove them 30 miles back to their family farm stand in
the rural Amish community of Oswegatchie, she said.
(Reporting by Karen Brooks; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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