Following a lengthy trial, the attacker of a 24-year-old student of the Graduate School of Journalism was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in July.
Robert A. Williams, a 31-year-old prior offender, was convicted on 44 out of 46 counts that include attempted murder, arson, kidnapping, burglary, and numerous counts of rape and sexual assault. In an April 2007 attack that shocked the Columbia campus, Williams forced his way into the woman’s apartment on West 141st Street and held her captive for over 19 hours, torturing her and repeatedly raping her, before setting fire to her apartment and fleeing.
The victim survived and testified calmly and meticulously about the ordeal during the trial in July. She said Williams—who she identified in person in court as well as from photographs—exited an elevator with her and forced himself into her apartment. “I was crying and begging him not to do what he was doing,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me, and I wanted to survive.”
The victim, who is no longer a student at the school, recounted that Williams forced her to ingest handfuls of pain medication and several bottles of beer, which caused liver failure according to testimony from doctors. After she refused to stab out her own eyes with a pair of scissors, Williams poured a bucket of boiling water on her, until further demands led her to stab herself superficially in the neck.
“I said, ‘Just kill me, you know you’re going to kill me anyway,’ and he said, ‘No, you’re not good enough for that,’” the woman testified. “I was in so much pain that I tried to aim for my neck and then if I died it would be better than however he was going to do it, but I missed and he really got angry.”
The victim testified that Williams sealed her lips shut with Krazy Glue, and subsequently used a kitchen knife to slash her eyelids. Williams bound her and hung her from her shoulders in her closet, later severely burning her by hurling bleach on her body, she said.
Williams tied the woman to a futon and set fire to it, and left the apartment. The victim said she was able to use the fire to burn through the wires binding her, and escaped from the apartment. Williams was arrested a week later on a burglary charge in Queens.
Throughout the two week trial, defense attorney Arnold Levine argued that his client was mentally unfit for trial and “not a rational thinker.” Pre-trial hearings found Williams mentally fit for trial, but Levine pointed to ongoing examinations of mental health and specific instances of behavior as evidence of incompetency.
Citing rambling questions that the victim told the court Williams asked her, Levine portrayed his client as operating “not in a rational way” and without the kind of “common sense” the jurors possessed, so that intent or motive could not be assumed.
Williams repeatedly refused to come to court during the trial, and presiding judge Carol Berkman occasionally issued orders to forcibly bring him to the courtroom. On the day of the sentencing, Williams was carried in with arms and legs shackled by five armed guards in riot gear, brandishing helmets, plastic shields, and truncheons.
While Levine referred to Williams’ absences as evidence of his lack of understanding, prosecuting assistant district attorney Ann Prunty called his absences an “utter disregard for the criminal justice system.” Prunty called on the jury to “hold Robert Williams accountable for what he did,” arguing he was behaving rationally and is capable of forming clear intents and motives.
“This is a person who enjoys and in fact relishes and derives pleasure from the infliction of extreme pain on another human being,” Prunty said at the July 24 sentencing hearing.
Evidence Prunty presented against Williams included a bloodstained shirt he was wearing when arrested, which was found to contain the victim’s DNA. A different shirt was also found in the victim’s apartment that contained a mixture of her and Williams’ DNA.
Berkman sentenced Williams on each individual charge, totaling to a minimum of 422 years. “By the outrage of the defendant’s extraordinary evil he has ... forfeited any right to the hope of liberty,” she said. “The protection of the community requires that he be put away.”
Levine told reporters he will “definitely” appeal the sentence and several counts on which Williams was convicted.
For updates published during the Williams trial, check out http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55174
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