A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 115 years behind bars Tuesday for the brutal rape of an 83-year-old widow – but was too cowardly to show his face in the courtroom to hear the decision.
Asa Robert, 20, was found guilty in Dec. 2015 of suffocating, raping, and sodomizing the woman after breaking into her Brighton Beach home during the summer of 2015.
The widow, whose name is being withheld, was not in court to hear the sentencing – as reliving the details of the rape during Robert’s trial re-traumatized her, prosecutor Olatokunbo Olaniyan told the court.
A recreant Robert stayed away as well, but because he was scared of the cameras, his defense attorney Samuel Karliner said.
“My client is choosing not to be present during this proceeding,” Karliner told Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Vincent DelGiudice. “[Robert] specifically said he does not want to come out because he does not want his picture taken.”
Karliner added that Robert “fully maintains his innocence.”
But DelGiudice, scoffed at Robert’s petulant decision to hide in a cell, and called his conduct “unspeakable.”
“The basic tenant of civ behavior is to have deference towards those more vulnerable than everyone else, particularly the aged,” the jurist growled.
“I see no logical reason or any grounds to offer any mercy to this defendant,” DelGiudice said as his eyes rested on the empty chair. “He showed no mercy to any of his victims.”
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez commended the sentence, saying it is “necessary to protect the public from a clearly dangerous individual.”
Robert will again face a jury in February, when he returns to court to be tried on charges of assaulting a police officer.