Yeah the guy that raped, tortured, forced her to gouge her eyes out, forced her to swallow liquid cleaners, and then burned her, gets 422 years.
He should get death. And the lawyer should as well, just for trying to plead for his client.
Ex-con Robert Williams gets life in prison for Columbia student torture
By BARBARA ROSS and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, July 24th 2008, 5:51 PM
Calling the sex-torture of a Columbia student an "extraordinary evil," an angry judge sent the sadistic rapist to jail for 422 years on Thursday - and said he deserved even more.
"The defendant by his own conduct has forfeited his right to liberty or to the hope of liberty," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman said of sex monster Robert Williams.
"Although (he) has clearly and unequivocally demonstrated his disdain for the legal process, we who are a part of it are bound to follow the rules."
The remorseless rapist, who had to be forcibly dragged into court, showed no emotion, sitting shackled at the defense table, his hands draped in protective mitts to prevent him from scratching anyone.
"It is safe to say that the person who is before you today is a brutal, sadistic monster," prosecutor Ann Prunty said of Williams, a 31-year-old ex-con.
The victim didn't attend the sentencing, but wrote the judge a letter pleading for the maximum punishment.
"All I ask is that he be given a sentence appropriate for the crime ..., one that ensures he'll never be free to hurt anyone again," the victim wrote.
Berkman was clearly moved.
"Every decent person who witnessed [the victim's] testimony in this courtroom was impressed by her bravery, her intelligence and her extraordinary grace in the face of the horror that this defendant inflicted upon her," the judge said.
A jury of eight men and four women convicted Williams in June on 44 counts of attempted murder, kidnapping, arson, rape, sodomy and burglary.
During the trial the 23-year-old victim testified that she feared she would not survive the nightmarish April 13, 2007 assault in her Hamilton Heights studio apartment.
She described how Williams followed her from the elevator to her apartment door, forcing his way inside and repeatedly raping her.
"I thought after he took all my stuff, I thought he would leave," she testified.
"When he started raping me again, I was sure I was going to die," she continued.
Over 19 hours, Williams tortured the victim as she pleaded for her life. He blinded her with bleach, scalded her with boiling water, sealed her lips with crazy glue, made her cut off her own hair - and demanded she gouge out her eyes before slicing her eyelids.
He capped his fiendish crime by setting her ablaze while she lay bound to a futon frame.
"If Robert Williams is free to walk the streets, someone is going to die," said Prunty, imploring Berkman to lock him up and throw away the key.
Berkman said that if Williams ever comes up for parole, "the parole board should be aware that this is an extremely dangerous man, who has no regard for the safety or welfare of others or for any legal rule."
Defense lawyer Arnold Levine argued that Williams was "psychotic" and pleaded with the judge for mercy.
"Nothing I can say mitigates the crime," Levine said. "Give him some hope of someday getting out. To do that is the humane thing to do."
