A Crown Heights man is headed behind bars — possibly for the rest of his days — for sexually assaulting a woman and threatening to kill her inside her Bushwick home, according to Brooklyn’s top prosecutor.
A judge on Dec. 13 sentenced Romaric Guibre to 40 years to life in prison for the violent home invasion that District Attorney Eric Gonzalez called particularly egregious and unnerving.
“This was an especially heinous attack in which the defendant assaulted and terrorized a woman for hours,” Gonzalez said. “It’s important for people to feel safe in the sanctity of their own home.”
A jury last month convicted Guiebre on charges including sexual assault, burglary, and robbery after he broke into the 29-year-old woman’s DeKalb Avenue apartment using a spare key, sexually assaulted her, and stole cash on July 25, 2016.
The victim told the courtroom that she woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a key turning in her front door, and saw Guiebre standing in her apartment when she went to check who was entering.
The victim screamed at the sight of him, and he grabbed her neck and shoved her into her bedroom, where he whipped out a gun and threatened, “I’m going to kill you,” the top prosecutor said.
The woman, however, fought back, biting Guiebre on his nose and drawing blood. But Guiebre persisted, tying up the victim, blindfolding her with a bedsheet, and sexually assaulting her, according to Gonzalez, who said he made her take a shower afterwards.
Following the brutal assault, Guiebre grabbed the victim’s debit card and withdrew $400 from her bank account and again threatened to kill her if she reported the incident, before shoving her bedding and his blood-soaked items in a garbage bag and leaving, Gonzalez said.
The woman then called her boyfriend, who reported the attack to authorities, officials said.
Cops cuffed Guiebre weeks later on Aug. 23 after recovering his blood on the victim’s bedroom and bathroom floors, according to Gonzalez, who said he worked as a house cleaner and previously scrubbed the woman’s apartment, when he likely picked up the spare key he used to break in the night of the assault.
