Ohio Wife Defends Child-Molester Hubbie in Court

Aug. 20, 2010— -- Her husband was drugging her so that he could sneak off to have sex with one of her middle school students, but Jenny Magro still stood up for her husband in court, begging the judge to be lenient.

"[He is] a small, white man who might not be able to defend himself against other prisoners," Magro, 50, of Cincinnati, said Thursday of her husband, Salvatore Magro, 51, according to ABC News' Cincinnati affiliate, WCPO.

A former religion and social studies teacher at Our Lady of Victory in Cincinnati, Salvatore Magro subsequently was sentenced to four years in prison, a fraction of the 15-year maximum penalty for unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

It may sound unbelievable that Magro would stick up for her cheating, child molesting husband, but her behavior is not unheard of, psychologists say, and is the hallmark of a spouse in denial.

"She still has a fantasy that things could be saved," said Marion Frank, a Philadelphia-based psychologist. "Perhaps she's terrified to be alone ... but she is in denial."

In June, Magro admitted to having a long-term sexual relationship with the 15-year-old girl, a student at Rapid Run Middle School in Cincinnati, where his wife taught.

During Thursday's sentencing, he further admitted to drugging his wife in order to visit the girl and that he and the girl had exchanged wedding vows. Magro also said that he no longer loved his wife.

Magro blamed her husband's crimes on a stroke he suffered in 2009, saying that it altered his judgment.