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Aisenbergs On 'Montel': Help Us Find Sabrina

By BETH GADDIS of TBO.com

Published: October 11, 2007

TAMPA – A former Valrico couple appeared on "The Montel Williams Show" today to continue their plea for the public's help in finding their daughter.

Sabrina Aisenberg disappeared from the family's surburban Tampa home on Nov. 24, 1997. Her parents say they haven't lost hope, even though it has been 10 years since she last was seen.

"We believe she's going to come home, the same way Elizabeth Smart did," Marlene Aisenberg told Williams, referring to the Utah teenager who was kidnapped in June 2002 and found almost a year later. "Someone was walking along the street and saw that girl.

"And anyone out there who can look at these pictures and look at children walking along the street, someone is going to recognize she looks like one of us or one of the other children and we are going to get her home."

The talk show flashed a picture of what Sabrina Aisenberg looked like as a 5-month-old and a time-lapse photograph of what she might look like now as a 10-year-old.

On the show, Marlene and Steve Aisenberg said law enforcement officers never focused enough on the possibility Sabrina was kidnapped.

"From Day One, they told us they thought we had something to do with our daughter's disappearance," Steve Aisenberg said. "They were looking for a body, not a child. All we ever asked was that they look for the child. She's out there somewhere."

The Aisenbergs were prosecuted in federal court on charges that they lied to investigators who were looking into the disappearance of Sabrina.

They were indicted based on a transcript from recordings by a listening device investigators placed in their bedroom. Two judges determined the recordings were inaudible and the transcripts could not be verified.

The case against the couple was thrown out, and the Aisenbergs were awarded $1.5 million in legal fees.

The Aisenbergs also filed a lawsuit accusing the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office of wrongfully prosecuting them but dropped the lawsuit last year.

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