STROUDSBURG — A Tobyhanna man who posed as "mother" to eight foster sons he sexually assaulted faces 115 years in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday.



Kevin Simon, 37, who calls himself Anna Hart, fooled the teen-age boys for 18 months into thinking they were having sex with a woman.



The bizarre case gained widespread media attention and caused the collapse of Juvenile Rehabilitation Service, a private foster child agency which placed 27 foster boys from four counties in the Hart household, unaware that the Hart matriarch was a biological male.



Clad in a blue androgynous prison smock, the man who would be a woman and wanted to dress as one at trial, mumbled "yes" to questions from President Judge Ronald E. Vican, when he asked if the defendant understood the guilty pleas.



Referring to the transsexual defendant as "Mr. Simon," Vican had difficulty eliciting answers from the apparently depressed defendant, whose head lolled forward, eyes drooping. At a recent court hearing Simon asked if he could be called Anna Hart and wear women's clothes to his trial.



Efforts to reach James Hart, who lived with Simon on Jasmine Drive, were unsuccessful. James Hart served as the foster father.



Officials with JRS said they were unaware that the Harts were anything other than a responsible couple who accepted difficult-to-place foster boys from Monroe, Luzerne, Lackawanna and Lehigh counties.



Last week "Anna Hart," writing from the Monroe County Correctional Facility, told the Pocono Record she blamed many of her troubles on JRS, which never gave the Harts proper training for taking care of troubled youths and represented them to the placing county authorities as "qualified therapists."



"My husband and I have no training in this area," "Hart" said.



"Hart" said one of the former foster boys lives with "my husband James, and comes to visit me every Saturday and Sunday. He calls me 'Mom' and calls James 'Dad.' "



Simon's guilty plea arose from a deal between Sherri Stephan, assistant Monroe County District Attorney, Simon and his defense attorney Brett Riegel in which 67 felony charges were reduced to 12 of sex related felonies and misdemeanors, including corruption of minors, indecent assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.



"It's always better when the victims don't have to testify," Stephan said after the plea, "That way they are not traumatized twice." She called the outcome "a good plea for the Commonwealth."



The foster boys told police their foster mother had anal and oral sex with them at various times and places in the 9514 Jasmine Drive home. They said "Hart" played pornographic movies for them, too.



Most of the foster children did not know they'd had sex with a man until police told them during interviews after Simon was arrested.



The defendant had undergone several sex change procedures prior to his arrest, but the process was not completed, and he still retained male genitalia.



One foster child told police sex with his foster mother ceased "after [I] discovered that Anna Hart had a penis."



Another foster son told police he did not know he had been having sex with a male "until [my] therapist told me on Sept. 18, 2000."



The scandal prompted Lehigh, Luzerne and Lackawanna counties to remove dozens of children from foster home placements made by Juvenile Rehabilitation Services.



JRS, whose license to operate was revoked, was run by Walter McGrath, a Coolbaugh Township supervisor.



Vican is expected to sentence the defendant by August at the earliest after preparation of a pre-sentence investigation.