Miss-Delectable

Pair get prison term for stealing disability check of deaf victim- MassLive.com

Through an interpreter for deaf people, a young man told Hampden Superior Court Judge Constance M. Sweeney this week what it felt like to be held captive in a car by two men and robbed of his disability check.

The man said the crime against him has left him unable to walk alone.

"I'm afraid of who I speak to, who I meet," the man said. "I was afraid to come to court. I wanted to wear a disguise so I wouldn't be recognized."

The man gave his victim impact statement at the sentencing of Anthony Jolly, 23, and Kenneth Houle, 22, both of Springfield. Each was sentenced Thursday by Sweeney to 5-8 years in state prison.

The had pleaded guilty to armed robbery, kidnapping and assault with a dangerous weapon in the Feb. 2, 2007, crime.

Assistant District Attorney Richard B. Morse, who had asked for 6-9 year sentences, said that the victim, 19 years old at the time of the robbery, is completely deaf in one ear and has 50 percent hearing in the other.

The victim had been expecting his federal disability check on a certain day but it was not in the mail. Jolly, whom the victim knew, was in a car which Houle was driving when he told the victim to come for a ride.

Jolly gave the victim the check, which he said he found, and offered to drive him to the bank at Allen and Cooley streets to cash it.

The victim said he cashed his check, which was in the amount of $560. He said the two men would not let him out of the car, since the child locks were on. He heard a clip being loaded into a gun. Jolly pointed a gun at him and demanded his money, which he handed over.

Then, the victim said, Jolly handed the gun to Houle, who stuck it in his face. The men drove him around, with Jolly putting a gun in his forehead again, and finally let him out, where he went to a house and the resident called police.

Morse credited police officer Edward Cass for his work on the case.

Sweeney told the victim that it is terrible to think someone would rob him of his disability check, "let alone under the pretense of helping you."

Mickey E. Harris, Jolly's lawyer, asked for a 2-4 year sentence, saying that his client has mental health issues for which he receives federal disability assistance. In a letter Harris read to Sweeney, Jolly asked her to consider his two small children, saying, "I know I should have thought of that before I did what I did."

Roderick B. O'Connor, Houle's lawyer, asked for a 3-4 year sentence, saying, "I cannot put into words the shame he (Houle) feels as he stands besides me."

O'Connor said Houle has had problems with marijuana use for a long time and "became catastrophically out of control" causing his participation in the incident.

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