The allegations that Ja’Sun Robertson poured boiling bleach on his now former wife and beat her in front of their three children were so “horrific,” it left her “speechless,” Judge Natalie Bokota told him.
Robertson, 28, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in March to aggravated battery and three counts of neglect.
He was sentenced to 16 years Tuesday — 14 in prison and two on probation. He said he would appeal.
Defense lawyer Kerry Connor asked for him to be screened for mental health programs in prison to look at deeper issues that could have triggered the incident.
On the stand, his ex-wife Mariah Bolden described a horrific night.
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Gary Police responded at 6:15 a.m. on July 13, 2023, to the 4400 block of W. 21st Avenue. When police got to the hospital, a Methodist nurse told investigators the woman was already intubated. The investigator noted skin was peeling off her face.
Robertson lost it after finding out she was talking with another man. The woman had recently given him divorce papers, according to the charging affidavit.
Bolden said in court that she just got off work at 2 a.m. when she thought it was “odd” he was right by the door. Something was “off,” but not enough to think she’d soon be in danger.
Around 4:30 a.m., she was sleeping in bed with their three children, then 3, 2, 1, when Robertson poured a “boiling” liquid on her, then started to hit her. The kids were screaming and crying.
“I begged him to take me into another room,” she said, so they wouldn’t see him beating her.
Regardless, she heard their “cries” and “screams” for Robertson to stop.
Robertson ripped her clothes off and poured “cleaning chemicals” on her. He went to the kitchen to boil more bleach, she said. When she tried to escape, he dragged her back. She begged him to call 911.
“No, you are about to die,” she recalled he said.
At one point, he went to the garage and was pacing back and forth. She knew it was a chance to escape.
She climbed out the window naked, barely able to see or breathe, and managed to make it to bang on a neighbor’s door, screaming for help. Robertson started to drag her through the grass.
If he got me inside the house, I would die, she told the court. She grabbed onto the neighbor’s car wheel.
Then, they heard her and came outside. The neighbors were “in shock,” but threatened to get a gun. Robertson appeared to back off, but threatened to kill everyone there, she said.
She spent 2.5 weeks in the hospital.
At first, her kids didn’t recognize her. She feared that if she was taken off the breathing machine, she might die. She survived. Her kids are left traumatized to this day, she said. The attack was planned, she said.
Bolden questioned why Robertson called her parents around 2 a.m., asking where she was, when he knew she would soon be home. Her only answer was that he wanted a “false story” to make it “seem like I disappeared.”
Deputy Prosecutor Arturo Balcazar asked for a maximum sentence.
The attack caused “longstanding” physical and mental injuries. It was “horrific” with the intensity “rarely seen,” even in Lake County courts.
Connor acknowledged the crime was profound – and would “raise the hair on the back of their head” of anyone who knew about it.
Her client “recognizes that.”
She asked for a minimum sentence.
The former couple referred to each other in court as “Mr. Robertson” and “the victim.”
Robertson said Bolden was his “first love,” who tried to “help me” by taking him to church, seeking therapy. She gave him “children.”
“I messed that up,” he said, hoping one day for her forgiveness.
He had a “duty of care” that he violated “brutally,” Bokota told him. It was “simply horrifying.”
She noted he showed some remorse.
“I hope that’s honest,” Bokota said.
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After the incident, Robertson went to the Gary Police parking lot to turn himself in. He told police they were both unfaithful and he had “confronted” the man on social media, who said he’d “back off.” The woman went out and came home at 3 a.m. on July 13, he said.
Robertson admitted he broke her phone, tablet and the Ring doorbell after he looked through her texts. He went to the bedroom and confronted the woman while she was half-asleep, in bed with their kids, aged 3, 2, and 1. She asked what he was talking about.
He went into the kitchen, grabbed boiling water he claimed he was using for eggs. He went into the bedroom and poured it on her as she screamed.
He “realized what he had done” and grabbed witch hazel. The children woke up from her screams.
In one of the kids’ bedrooms, he continued to ask her about details of the other relationship, then poured bleach on her, charges allege. He got a towel, then heard a “commotion” when the woman jumped out the window.
Robertson said he “lied” to neighbors that he called the cops. When he tried to flee in a rental SUV, he had to hit the car of a neighbor who was blocking him on purpose, then drove toward Iowa.
He ran out of gas and ditched the vehicle in Illinois. His mother picked him up and took him back to the Gary police station.
Robertson said he tried to apologize to the woman but “didn’t think that she heard him.”
[email protected]; Post-Tribune archives contributed.