Trail Delayed In Case Of Runaway Missing For Decade

Monday, February 12th 2007, 9:53 am

By: News On 6

PITTSBURGH (AP) _ A man stabbed himself just before he was to go on trial Monday for sex crimes against a runaway who said she was secretly hidden in his home for a decade, his lawyer said.

Thomas John Hose, 49, was hospitalized Monday morning after he was found bleeding in his home, defense attorney Jim Ecker said.

``He stabbed himself several times and he supposedly took some kind of medication,'' Ecker said before a judge issued a gag order in the case. He said he received a call from Hose's mother earlier Monday saying Hose was ``sitting on a chair with blood coming out of him.''

Hose is charged with counts including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault. A judge set a new trial date of May 14 and ordered that Hose be given a psychiatric evaluation.

Trial was also supposed to start Monday for Judith Sokol, a 58-year-old beautician who prosecutors say helped girl run away from home and change her looks. It was not immediately clear if Sokol's case would begin.

The runaway, Tanya Nicole Kach, now 25, was discovered last year after she told a convenience store owner she was on a missing person's Web site. The owner called police, and Kach told authorities she ran away from home 10 years earlier and had been living in Hose's house.

Kach, who has given several interviews about her ordeal, has said that she met Hose when she was an eighth-grader and that Hose used psychological tactics to keep her from leaving, including threatening to kill her.

Hose, a school security guard, has contended that Kach was never restrained in his home in McKeesport, a small city several miles east of Pittsburgh.