Courthouse controversy wraps up with a weekend in jail

by Manju Subramanya
Staff Writer

In March, Robert Thornett Jr. faced 10 years in jail for assaulting his girlfriend. On Monday, Circuit Court Judge Durke G. Thompson sentenced the North Bethesda man to serve a weekend in jail and three months in home detention.

So ends a case that roiled the county's legal community after Thompson overturned Thornett's guilty verdict on rape charges, letting the assault conviction stand. The judge's decision unleashed a firestorm of protest from women's groups and State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler (D), who accused him of showing bias toward female victims and prosecutors. A dozen lawyers, many of whom have argued cases before Thompson, defended his conduct at that time.

"It's not much more than a slap on the hand," Deputy State's Attorney Katherine Winfree said of the sentence Tuesday. "It is a very disappointing thing to have a judge overturn a case for reasons we disagree with.

"Then for a judge to give a sentence that is as minimal a punishment as it can possibly be is deeply disappointing," she said.

Gansler's office declined last month to proceed with a second rape trial, citing the victim's reluctance to face another trial.

Thornett, 35, will be free to work, but he will have his whereabouts monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet. He will be on probation for 18 months after completing his home detention and undergo an anger management course. He has been ordered to stay away from his victim.

On Monday, Prosecutor Karla Smith sought the maximum punishment of 10 years in jail, a request that prompted the judge to shake his head repeatedly in disbelief. State sentencing guidelines call for probation to six months in jail for second-degree assault that does not result in permanent injury.

“The evidence is clear that some degree of physical abuse occurred,” Thompson told Thornett. “There was not sufficient provocation to justify action on your part.”

The assault took place on Christmas day 2000 when prosecutors said Thornett beat and raped the victim, then his live-in girlfriend, after she accidentally kicked him under the blanket; the defense portrayed it as consensual sex and said the kicking was intentional. Prosecutors said she suffered a ruptured eardrum and bruises on her arms and back.

“Our view was that it was not believable that this woman would have her eardrum ruptured and consent to sex,” Winfree said Tuesday.

Thornett was sentenced only on the second-degree assault conviction, even though a jury had convicted him in November of both rape and assault. Thompson overturned the rape conviction on March 1 and granted Thornett a new trial, citing new evidence that the victim may have lied about when she was born. The judge let the assault conviction stand.

At Monday’s hearing, the victim lashed out at the judge during her statement.

“Twelve people over here believed he raped me,” she said, gesturing at the jury box. “You turned over that one.

“You call me liar because it happens I am an immigrant from Indonesia,” she railed tearfully in broken English as the judge glared at her. “You are on his side because he is American. That is not fair for me.”

Soon after she returned to her seat, Thornett rose to express remorse for hurting her. “It was a very grave mistake. It was an overreaction,” he said, claiming that he had reacted to her physical abuse. The statement prompted the victim, sitting in the front row, to dissolve into sobs.

“Be quiet in this courtroom or I will have you excluded,” Thompson thundered.

Before imposing the sentence, Thompson said he considered several factors: the hardship faced by the victim, the emotional trauma and physical injuries she endured, and the radical change in her life.

He also considered the hardship faced by Thornett, who was fired in April from his job as an information systems employee at Georgetown University Law Center, and the “stigma” of being convicted of a crime in a case that drew “significant publicity.”

“Some sentence should be imposed,” the judge said, “and it should be punitive in nature.” He handed down a three-year jail sentence with all but 125 days suspended. He gave Thornett credit for the 35 days already served in jail and said the remainder would be in home detention.

Jennifer Page, who handled Thornett’s defense with Rockville lawyer Joseph Quirk, said she had been concerned that Thornett would get a heavier sentence because the assault charge “had been bootstrapped to the more serious rape charge.”