The Brooklyn man who was found guilty of raping and sodomizing an 82-year-old widow has been sentenced to 115 years in prison.
But he did not show up to court to hear the January 10 decision.
Asa Robert, 20, was found guilty in December 2015 of suffocating, raping and sodomizing the elderly woman during the attack last summer.
Robert’s defense attorney Samuel Karliner said: ‘[Robert] specifically said he does not want to come out because he does not want his picture taken.’
Karliner also said that Robert maintains his innocence, the New York Post reported.
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.
In November 2016, the victim, who is now 83 years old, 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.
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.
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.
During Robert’s trial in late November, the 4-foot-5, 90-pound victim, who has been using a wheelchair since the day of the brutal attack, recounted for the jury how Robert pounced on her when she went to lay down, grabbed her by the neck, pushed her onto her bed and threatened her with the knife.
‘He started to yell, “Gimme the money,”‘ she recalled, according to a report by the New York Daily News. ‘I said, “I’m a poor old lady, my family handles all my money.”‘
The widow, who is not being named because she is believed to be the victim of a sexual assault, said Robert proceeded to ransack her home, shoving clothes into a bag. He also reportedly pilfered an umbrella.
The victim even offered the teen her late husband’s Hawaiian shirt in the hope that he would leave without harming her, reported the New York Post.
As Robert was making his way toward the door, the widow told the court he suddenly turned around and ordered her back into the bedroom, where he proceeded to rape, sodomize and suffocate the octogenarian, despite her repeated pleas to stop and call 911.
‘This was the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to me,’ she told jurors of the attack. ‘He was on top of me like a pile of bricks. It felt like he was trying to crush me to death.’
The woman said Robert stayed on her for a long time and continued assaulting her ‘no matter what I said.’
After he finally got off the woman, she said Robert brought her a bottle of water and her medical alert button.
When he left her home, the victim called her son-in-law for help and he summoned police to her home. However, it was not until a week later that she told her daughter about the rape.
Police used surveillance video to identify Asa Robert as a suspect, and he was picked up in Bedford Stuyvesant just a few days later.
PIX11 reported that his past criminal record included at least eight arrests, including for robbery, gang assault and resisting arrest.
During the victim’s testimony, Robert sat sullenly at the defense table and was reportedly overheard telling his lawyer that the witness ‘is just an old woman.’
