BRIDGEPORT — Tammy Imre had made a lot of excuses about why she had sex with an 8-year-old boy, including that she thought of him as "a 30-year-old midget."

But the excuses were gone Monday, along with most of the blond dye in her hair, as she pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of risk of injury to a minor.

Reporters and spectators craned their heads as the Stratford woman, her hands clasped behind her back, whispered "guilty" to the first count.

Urged to speak up by Superior Court Judge Roland Fasano, the 30-year-old Imre repeated "guilty" and then "guilty" to the second charge in a steady voice.

She faces six years in prison when she is sentenced Nov. 4. She will serve the term at the York Correctional Center in Niantic.

Asked by the judge if the accusations against her were accurate, Imre nodded her head and said, "Yes, accurate."

Senior Assistant State's Attorney Cornelius Kelly said he had been prepared to recommend the former secretary serve 12 years in prison. He said he agreed to a plea bargain only after the neighborhood boy's mother, who sat in the back of the courtroom, told him she not only wanted to spare her son but also Imre's 8-year-old daughter from having to testify at a trial.

The boy's mother "not only took into account the mental state of her son, but of Miss Imre's daughter as well," he said.

But Imre's lawyer, Donald Papcsy, said later he believed the defense could have mounted a good insanity defense.

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"We agreed in pretrials that she had some kind of mental disease or defect, but if she was found not guilty by reason of insanity she would have ended up serving more time in a state mental hospital," Papcsy said. He said with consideration for good behavior in prison, she could have gotten out in three and a half years.

But Kelly said he never saw the psychiatric report done on Imre and the insanity defense didn't convince him to agree to a plea bargain.

"I don't believe he would have been successful in that defense," he said.

Imre is accused of having a sex with the boy, beginning when he was 7. It ended in September 2004 after the boy's mother found a love letter Imre had written to the boy.

Police said Imre heard that the boy was telling people in the neighborhood that she was going to go to jail, and decided to go tell her story to police. Police said that Imre, without prompting, admitted having sex with the boy. "I can't give a number, but it was a lot,'' she told them.

Imre told police the boy had been the aggressor in the relationship, getting her to break off a relationship with an adult boyfriend and convincing her not to take birth-control pills. She said she gave him a key to her home. Imre's daughter said she saw the boy doing "disgusting" things with her mother, police said.

The girl, who was expected to be called as a witness by the state if the case had gone to trial, was taken away from Imre and is in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families.

Police said the boy initially denied doing anything sexual with Imre because he was worried about getting her in trouble. But later, they said he admitted having sexual intercourse with her.

However, Papcsy contends there never was any penetration by the boy.