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SPOKANE - Before a judge sentenced her to nearly 16 years in prison, a tearful Lana Vickery said she "would've given up my life to protect" the lives of Japanese college students she helped abduct and rape.

Noting her cooperation with authorities after her arrest, a Spokane County Superior Court judge sentenced Vickery last week to 15 years, 11 months in prison.

Vickery, 43, pleaded guilty last fall to one count of first-degree rape and one count of first-degree kidnapping stemming from the abduction of three women attending the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute.

Defense attorney Mark Hannibal said Vickery accepted responsibility for the offenses, saying "she was not just along for the ride."

Vickery, part of a bondage and sadomasochism ring called the Spokane Power Exchange, was a "branded slave" of co-defendant Edmund Ball and felt powerless to act, Hannibal said. Vickery thought Ball would kill her and members of her family if she didn't take part, Hannibal said.

"Fear remains to this day," Hannibal said.

"As she sits here today there is the deep-seated belief that Mr. Ball or one of his associates will find her, have their way with her and leave her for dead."

Vickery cooperated with authorities after her arrest Nov. 18, telling detectives she was present when Ball, 40, and co-defendant David M. Dailey assaulted two Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute students in the basement of Dailey's Spokane Valley home Nov. 11. A third student was abducted but released before the other two were assaulted.

Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute is a branch of Mukogawa Women's University near Kobe, Japan. Students spend a semester in Spokane, learning English and U.S. culture. Asian women were targeted because Dailey and Ball thought they would be too ashamed to report the crimes, Vickery told police.

After the women flew to Seattle in March to give depositions, and said they would be back for trial, the male defendants accepted plea agreements with prosecutors.

"(Vickery) didn't wait ... to see if victims would or wouldn't testify," Hannibal said. "She stepped up to the plate."

None of the victims appeared at Vickery's sentencing. Vickery cried as she read a statement, saying she felt "deep remorse and sadness" for the crimes and wished "all the circumstances could be redressed."

She said she felt betrayed that she "gave Eddie (Ball) my free will (and) he abused his power over me and convinced Dave (Dailey) to do the same.

"When I have those feelings," Vickery said, "I think I should have let Eddie kill me to prevent anything from happening to someone else."

Vickery said she "helped in every small way I could without arousing suspicion from the men, to make things easier and safer for those girls."

"I would have given my life to protect theirs," she said.

When she is released from prison, Vickery must register as a sex offender and kidnapper.

Ball and Dailey will be sentenced late this month.

Dailey, 38, also is charged with abducting two Japanese students from Eastern Washington University and assaulting them with a stun gun Oct. 28. Those women managed to escape.

A Spokane police officer was later fired for failing to properly investigate or file a report on that incident a month before the Mukogawa students were abducted.