NEW YORK — A New York writer who was convicted in May of kidnapping and sex abuse for holding a woman captive in her home was sentenced to 18 years to life Monday for the attack.

With the sentence, New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber appeared to show mercy on Peter Braunstein, who was facing 25 years to life on 10 counts, including kidnapping, burglary, robbery and sex abuse, for the Halloween 2005 attack on a former Fairchild Publications colleague. The minimum possible sentence was 15 years to life.

The decision also marked the end of a trial filled with sordid details of bondage fantasies and references to the media and the fashion industry, two areas of obsession documented in Braunstein's personal writings.

With a weary expression, Farber said he could do nothing to bring closure to the victim or the "profoundly disturbed" individual standing before him.

"Any sentence I give is going to be a life sentence," Farber said. "He will probably die in prison."

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Farber announced his decision after hearing a final appeal for leniency from Braunstein, a former Women's Wear Daily reporter, who blamed the attack on an untreated condition of paranoid schizophrenia.

"I just don't know how anyone can look at this as a plan," Braunstein said, referring to a prosecutor's contention that the effort he put into planning and carrying out the attack demonstrated a criminal intent. "It's more complicated than that."

During his three-week trial, forensic psychologist Barbara Kirwin testified that Braunstein suffered from a severe mental illness that caused him to break from reality, thus hindering his ability to form the intent to commit a crime.

Her testimony was contrasted by Braunstein's physicians at Bellevue Hospital, where he was held in pretrial custody after attempting suicide in jail. One physician testified that Braunstein suffered from less severe conditions of borderline personality with narcissistic traits and a substance-abuse disorder.

Farber said he found the evidence that Braunstein suffered from schizophrenia to be weak, but believed that his actions were the "byproducts" of his mental illness.

Regardless of Braunstein's condition, the judge said he was bound to statutes regarding the prosecution of people charged with class A felonies, a category which includes murder and rape.

"I am going to reject attempts to make this case a referendum on mental illness," Farber said. "Society has not found a way to deal with people suffering from mental illness."

A jury took less than four hours to convict Braunstein on most counts. He was acquitted, however, of arson charges stemming from two smoke bombs that he set off as a ruse to gain entry into the victim's home dressed as a firefighter.

In a nine-page letter to Farber last week, Braunstein conceded that he planned the attack but claimed that its "madness" resided in the fact that, when he was in the apartment, he did not know why he was there or what to do.

Dressed in a gray dress shirt and khaki pants and gesturing as he spoke to the judge, Braunstein, 43, said he recalled little, except watching television in the victim's apartment for an hour after he got into the home.

After he was inside the apartment, he knocked the victim out with chloroform, tied her naked to her bed and groped her. He left the next morning with a Louis Vuitton bag and a fur coat, according to her testimony.