Hartford - A West Hartford man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted a teenage girl who was found in his home a year after she disappeared and was feared dead was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday.

Adam Gault, 42, said he will “regret this for as long as I live” and apologized to the 16-year-old victim, who sat in the courtroom flanked by her mother and family attorney.

”I just want everybody involved to know, the families and most of all (you), how sorry I am for how I've hurt you,” said Gault, a former dog trainer who pleaded guilty in March to kidnapping and sexually assaulting the girl.

”I have let down and failed everyone who trusted me and loved me,” Gault told Hartford Superior Court Judge David Gold.

Gault's common-law wife and another woman who lived in Gault's home also were sentenced Friday. Each received three-year prison terms on related charges, accused of helping him hide the girl and failing to notify authorities.

of the sexual abuse.

The teen was 14 when she ran away from home in 2006 and moved in with Gault. Police officers who searched Gault's house in June 2007, believing she may be dead, found her hiding in a locked storage closet.

Authorities have said Gault exercised so much psychological, emotional and sexual control over her that she was terrified of outsiders and believed she could not leave.

He even set up a “fire drill” of sorts, prosecutors say, in which he had trained the girl to hide in the storage area - which was locked from the outside, with a bureau pushed in front of the door - whenever police and strangers were nearby.

Gold castigated Gault on Friday as a manipulator who victimized young women for his sexual gratification, and questioned the sincerity of Gault's contrition.

”In a sense, you kidnapped these girls over time by preying on their vulnerabilities,” he said. “The community is not safe when you are at liberty within it.”

Gault's guilty plea in March came in the face of what defense attorney Gerald Klein called overwhelming evidence, including an aborted fetus from the girl and DNA evidence that Gault was the father.

Marc Needelman, an attorney for the girl and her family, read a statement in court from the teenager, directed to Gault.

”You hurt me like nobody else has, and I hate you for it,” she said in the statement. “I feel that you ruined me inside in so many different ways. How will I ever know what is the truth and what's a lie?”

Some of the charges in Gault's plea bargain involved another Connecticut teenager who made similar allegations against him based on similar alleged incidents in 1998.

Gold sentenced Gault to 20 years in prison for t6he case involving the girl found last year at his house, and added five more years for the convictions involving the other girl. Gault also must serve 20 years probation after the jail time and register as a sex offender.

The Associated Press is not naming the girls because it does not typically identify sexual assault victims.

Prosecutors say Gault controlled women just as he trained dogs, breaking down their will and manipulating them with fear, rewards for good behavior and punishment for disobeying.

Gold said he considered those factors when he sentenced the women, 27-year-old Kimberly Cray and 41-year-old Ann Murphy, to considerably lighter sentences than Gault's.

Both women also apologized in court Friday, saying they wish they had done more to get the girl out of the situation. Cray even said she was glad she was arrested, describing prison as a more healthy environment than Gault's home.

Family and friends of both women described them as naive, easily manipulated, bullied and susceptible to the kind of psychological and emotional control of which Gault had become a master.

Murphy was Gault's common-law wife for almost 20 years and mother of their teenage son.

Cray moved in with Gault and Murphy in 2001. Authorities say she was vulnerable after a relationship of horrific physical and sexual abuse, and easily fell under Gault's control when he painted himself as her rescuer.

The family of the girl who disappeared has said she worked with Cray as a dog trainer and got to know Gault through her. The girl's stepfather also worked briefly with Gault several years earlier.

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