Montia Robbins
(PCSD file photo)
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — At the close of an extremely emotional sentencing hearing in which a sobbing girl said in court last week, “I can never forgive what he did to me,” a Perkins man was given a jury-recommended 30-year prison sentence for repeatedly sexually abusing a female relative between the ages of 12 and 15.
A Payne County jury of eight men and four women had deliberated for two and one-half hours on Sept. 7 before finding Montia Tylor Robbins, 33, who had a prior conviction for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in Pottawatomie County in 2013, guilty of child sexual abuse.
Jurors had heard testimony at the trial that at age 16 Robbins had pleaded guilty to child molesting in Lincoln County in 2006; in the sentencing stage of the Payne County trial in September, the jury took only 20 more minutes before recommending his penalty for child sexual abuse. District Judge Phillip Corley told Robbins that he must register as a sex offender on his release from prison.
His court-appointed attorney, Jodie Gage, told the Payne County judge, “He continues to deny the allegations. He intends to appeal,” his conviction.
When the judge asked Robbins if he wished to speak before being sentenced, Robbins said, “She’s calling me a monster. She didn’t get her way as a teenager.”
During the trial, the 17-year-old girl testified it happened to her in Perkins and Cushing. She said she didn’t know how often she was raped while her mother was at work. He asked me not to tell, she told the jury.
Perkins Police Chief Bob Ernst testified that he was contacted “by an investigator with Cushing PD who told me about possible child sex abuse in Perkins.” He said he observed a forensic interview of the girl at the Saville Child Advocacy Center in Stillwater.
During closing arguments at the September trial, prosecutor Erica Garuccio reminded the jury, “she testified it occurred in Perkins and Cushing — there were many incidents over a period of time.” She added, “you heard (testimony) that Mr. Robbins pled guilty to this type of crime,” previously.
The defense attorney told the jury that the girl was not credible. “She thinks Tylor (Robbins) is lazy. She didn’t like Tylor. She’s mad.”
In the final closing argument of the trial, prosecutor Debra Vincent told jurors, “It would help you if someone walked in on this and videoed it.
“Why should you choose to believe her? She gave you quite a few details. She said the first time is when she was suspended (from school). She was in the sixth grade.
“She tells you what room she was in. How much more descriptive is she supposed to be? She said these things happened to her when she was 12.”
Admitting that the girl didn’t tell an adult first, the prosecutor told jurors, “She had a friend she felt comfortable talking to her. Her mother didn’t believe her. You have the power to believe her.”
