AUGUSTA — Maine State Prison inmate Robert Robinson Jr. on Tuesday pleaded guilty to domestic violence terrorizing for repeatedly calling the victim of a prior domestic violence offense of which he had been convicted.
The new crime will cost Robinson, 50, formerly of Chelsea, an additional six months behind bars.
If you need help
If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic violence, help is available through the state’s toll-free hotline at 1-866-834-4357.
The calls took place over the period of a year, Assistant District Attorney Amanda Seekins told Justice Michaela Murphy, and frightened the victim, who contacted the Family Violence Project, which helps those involved in domestic violence situations.
“Yeah, I’m guilty. I said some things, yeah,” Robinson said during the hearing at the Capital Judicial Center.
“These were mutual phone calls,” said Robinson’s attorney, Andrew Wright. “They were not supposed to have contact. They were speaking to each other on a daily basis.”
He said the phone calls were sometimes mundane and occasionally became “very gruff.”
When the judge asked how those phone calls could happen, Wright said it resulted from “a failure in the internal system of the prison.”
The indictment on the domestic violence terrorizing charge says that Robinson “did communicate to Jessica A. Ruiz, a threat to commit or to cause to be committed” assault against her. The offense was alleged to have occurred July 1, 2016, to Aug. 1, 2016, in Vassalboro.
Ruiz was the state’s chief witness in a domestic violence assault case in which the state said she was beaten by Robinson over a two-day period in April 2013. She was arrested as a material witness after the prosecutors said they feared she had been ducking a subpoena and would fail to turn up for Robinson’s trial.
She was held for 17 hours, and then a judge ordered her freed on the condition that she appear at the trial.
Robinson is serving a 10-year term that had been suspended on a 2002 conviction in Kennebec County for gross sexual assault. His imprisonment occurred after he was convicted of violating a condition of release and violating a protective order on a 2013 charge of violating a condition of release and violating a protective order. His release date is listed as March 14, 2022, on the state Department of Corrections website.
He’s listed on the Maine Sex Offender Registry as a lifetime offender as a result of convictions in 2002 on five charges each of gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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