Alex and Lori Plummer may have avoided doing prison time for leaving two of their children duct taped in their beds as they went away for the weekend last year, but life at the couple's Valley Drive home won't be going back to the way it was any time soon.

Along with being placed under the supervision of the Montana Department of Corrections for the next nine years by District Court Judge Thomas Honzel Tuesday, the couple signed over their parental rights to the boys they abused and agreed to leave two of their other children in the custody of the state until case workers determine it's safe to return them to their home.

In addition, the Plummers agreed to abandon any plans to challenge the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services' decision to yank their day care license, which was suspended around the same time as the child abuse charges were filed.

"Your conduct was just entirely inappropriate," Honzel told the Plummers as Lori Plummer dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, her husband sitting stoically at her side. "Regardless of what I heard, I can't excuse it."

Deputies responded to the Plummer residence in July 2002 after receiving a call from a neighbor concerned about the welfare of the children.

According to court documents, deputies responding to the call noticed not only bruises and welts on the faces and bodies of the children — the signs of abuse that compelled the neighbor to contact authorities in the first place — but abrasions around the children's wrists and ankles.

Initially, the boys told authorities that they had sustained the injuries when they beat each other with belts during a fight.

However, the children recanted and said it was Lori Plummer who caused their injuries.

They added that the abrasions around their wrists and ankles were the result of their attempts to free themselves from their bonds after being tied and duct taped in their beds by the Plummers.

Prosecutors believe the Plummers routinely subdued the children by tying them in their beds, and, in one case, left the boys strapped to their beds for an entire weekend when they went out of town to attend a baseball tournament.

Other abuse alleged by prosecutors included food deprivation as punishment.

Attorneys for the Plummers argued that the children suffered from symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome and often became uncontrollable, sometimes injuring each other and property in their rages.

The Plummers said that restraining the boys — ages 10 and 12 — was their only means of ensuring that they didn't hurt each other or anyone else.

Earlier this year, the Plummers admitted to the child abuse charges against them as part of a plea agreement hammered out with attorneys from the Lewis and Clark County Attorney's Office.

Deputy County Attorney Carolyn Clemens said during the sentencing hearing Tuesday that recommendations by probation officers who drafted presentence investigations in the case did not jibe with the plea agreement — she didn't elaborate on the probation officers' recommendations. Presentence investigations are not open to the public.

However, Clemens urged the judge to accept the agreement in order to allow the boys to get on with their lives and avoid the stress of testifying at trial.

She said the plea agreement was crafted in such a manner as to punish the Plummers for their actions, and protect the Plummers' other children and children in the community who may potentially come in contact with the couple.

Defense attorney Michael Fanning called several witnesses who testified to the challenges presented to the Plummers by the two boys and to the toll the removal of the children from the home has taken on the couple.

Fanning advocated the acceptance of the plea agreement, asking the judge to consider the fact that the agreement was the result of considerable give and take on both sides and that the agreement takes into account the best interests of the children.

He added that the Plummers took a chance when they opened their homes to two children who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and they shouldn't take all of the responsibility for the boys' maladies — some of that blame should go to the children's birth mothers.

"The Plummers opened their home because they opened their hearts," Fanning said.

Honzel said he didn't disagree with the recommendations of the probation officers in their reports, but added that he didn't want to draw out the case any longer for the sake of the children.