A Brooklyn man, 20-year-old Asa Robert, has just been sentenced to 115 years behind bars after he was found guilty of raping an elderly woman in her own home, DailyMail.com reports.
According to court records, Robert was charged with suffocating, raping and sodomizing an 82-year-old widow during a summer 2015 attack.
The court reached a decision on January 10, though Robert was not present during the hearing.
Samuel Karliner, Robert's attorney, said, "[Robert] specifically said he does not want to come out because he does not want his picture taken."
The New York Post reports Robert is sticking by his claims that he is innocent.
During sentencing, Supreme Court Judge DelGuidice stated, "The basic tenant of civic behavior is to have deference toward those more vulnerable than everyone else."
DelGuidice decided to show "no mercy" for Robert during sentencing, since the defendant didn't show any mercy to his victim. DelGuidice gave the 20-year-old a 115-year prison sentence.
At a hearing in December 2016, Robert was convicted of first-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act.
Then, last week, he was found guilty of committing first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery, second-degree assault, second-degree burglary and second-degree criminal trespass.
The elderly woman, who is 4 feet 5 inches tall and weighs only 90 pounds, appeared in court in November of last year to tell the jury how Robert allegedly broken into her house and sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.
According to police reports, the attack occurred on the morning of July 13, 2015, when Robert, who was 18 years old at the time, broke into the elderly woman's residence in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, while she was preoccupied sweeping her front yard.
Then Robert quietly waited inside the woman's home with his knife drawn.
The victim, who is now in a wheelchair due to the attack, told the court that Robert jumped on her, pinned her down to the bed by her neck and threatened to hurt her with his knife.
New York Daily News reports that the woman told the jury,
He started to yell, 'Gimme the money.' I said, 'I'm a poor old lady, my family handles all my money.'
The woman claims Robert then began to shove some of her belongings, including clothes and an umbrella, into a bag.
The terrified widow even offered to give the teen her deceased husband's Hawaiian shirt in exchange for leaving her unharmed.
During the testimony, the woman said Robert started walking toward the door, then abruptly turned around and instructed her to go back into the bedroom.
This is where Robert proceeded to rape, sodomize and suffocate the elderly woman as she pleaded him to stop and call emergency services.
According to the victim,
This was the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to me. He was on top of me like a pile of bricks. It felt like he was trying to crush me to death.
The elderly woman told the court that her attacker stayed on top of her for an extended period of time and continued to assault her, despite her desperate pleas.
When Robert finished carrying out the assault, the woman said that he gave her a bottle of water and her medical alert button.
After Robert left the woman's home, she immediately called her son-in-law for help, who in turn notified the police.
Authorities were about to identify the assailant as Asa Robert thanks to surveillance footage. They apprehended the teen in Bedford Stuyvesant a few days after the attack.
Apparently, this isn't Robert's first run-in with the law, either. According to PIX11, he has a long criminal record that included arrests for gang assault, robbery and resisting arrest.
As the woman gave her heart wrenching testimony last year, Robert sat in the court room and was allegedly heard saying that the victim was "just an old woman" to his lawyer.
If you ask me, this is one criminal who definitely deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Citations: Teen who broke into 82-year-old disabled widow's home and raped her at knifepoint is sentenced to 115 YEARS in prison (DailyMail.com), EXCLUSIVE: Mother of teen who allegedly raped 82-year-old woman speaks out (Pix11), Brooklyn rape victim, 83, confronts attack suspect in court (New York Daily News), Man who raped 83-year-old widow gets 115 years in jail (New York Post)
