Asa Roberts Faces Over A Century In Prison For Raping An 82-Year-Old Brighton Beach Woman

Asa Roberts, 20, was convicted yesterday in the rape of an 82-year-old Brighton Beach woman last year, according to acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.

His array of charges include rape, sexual abuse, assault, burglary, robbery, and trespassing. He faces 122 years in prison when he is sentenced on January 10.

“This defendant committed a reprehensible and terrifying assault on a vulnerable elderly woman who had the courage to face her attacker in court,” said Gonzalez. “This defendant has now been brought to justice and held accountable for his actions.”

In the wee hours of July 13, 2015, at around 2am, Roberts snuck into the victim’s home on Brighton 11 Street and Brighton Beach Avenue while she was taking out her garbage, according to Gonzalez. After she had gone to bed, she heard a noise and discovered Roberts hiding in the bedroom. What ensued was horrific.

She screamed for him to leave, but he refused. He strangled her and forced her to the bed where he held a knife to her face and punched her in the chest. Roberts then hog-tied her and ransacked her bedroom.

Then Roberts brought the elderly woman into her kitchen where he assaulted her again before bringing her back to the bedroom to rape and sodomize her, according to Gonzalez.

Roberts told his victim not to call the police before leaving her home with a bag full of her personal items.

She then called her daughter and son-in-law who had been at her house the previous evening and kept monitoring her until 11pm because they worry she has a “mental illness” that causes her to compulsively clean the outside of her home, according to the son-in-law’s trial testimony.

“If she saw a candy wrapper, dirt, a cigarette butt in the front of her house she would go out there and clean it whether it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon or 2 o’clock at night,” said the son-in-law.

After the brutal attack, there was a four-day manhunt in which police combed Brooklyn to find Roberts.

Roberts described to police how he managed to evade capture for days despite being the target of a massive manhunt in which cops nearly caught Roberts multiple times.

“I hid between the sheetrock and the insulation of the wall. I was watching the warrant squad, the K9 Unit and ESU search for me. I could see them, but they could not see me,” he said of one of his close encounters with law enforcement. “They could not catch me because I do parkour which teaches you how to jump from rooftops of buildings.”

Roberts maintained that while he did rob the woman, he let his “friend” in through the back door and left him there with her after he got his loot.

“I did not do it, I let the other guy in the back door, I don’t want to be a snitch, but I was just the lookout. I don’t need nothing like that. I can get girls and I get money, my mother gives me money,” Roberts told police soon after his arrest in mid-July.