NEW YORK – A teenage boy from Brooklyn, who was found guilty of raping and sodomizing an 82-year-old widow, has been sentenced to 115 years in prison.
Asa Robert, 20, was found guilty in December 2015 of suffocating, raping and sodomizing the elderly woman during the attack last summer.
In November 2016, the victim, who is now 83 years old and is not being named because she is believed to be the victim of a sexual assault, came face-to-face with her attacker, recounting for the jury in harrowing detail how Robert broke into her home, put a knife to her neck and proceeded to sexually assault her.
The incident took place on the morning of July 13, 2015, when police said Robert slipped into the woman’s home in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn while she was sweeping her front yard and laid in wait for her with a knife in his hands.
Police used surveillance video to identify Asa Robert as a suspect, and he was picked up in Bedford Stuyvesant just a few days later.
Robert, who was 18 years old at the time, was arrested in July 2015 on a slew of charges stemming from the attack targeting the octogenarian.
But he did not show up to court to hear the January 10 decision.
His defense attorney has said that Robert maintains his innocence, the New York Post reported.
Announcing the verdict, Supreme Court Judge DelGuidice said: “The basic tenant of civic behavior is to have deference towards those more vulnerable than everyone else.”
He chose to offer ‘no mercy’ to Robert, who DelGuidice said showed ‘no mercy’ to any of his victims.
Robert had previous offenses and will go to court again in February because he allegedly assaulted a police officer.
He was convicted in December of first-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act, following his conviction last week of first-degree sexual abuse, second-degree assault, first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery, second-degree burglary and two counts of second-degree criminal trespass.
Robert could have received up to 122 years in prison.
