Robert Jerome Presco committed seven robberies in his life, but his most recent will be his last, a Carroll County Circuit Court judge said.
Judge J. Barry Hughes sentenced Presco Monday to 80 years in prison for armed robbery, assault and kidnapping in connection with a December home invasion in Eldersburg.
“These convictions by the jury, along with your prior record, indicate an inability on your part to live in society without terrorizing other people,” Hughes said as he sentenced Presco, a Baltimore 37-year-old. “I have no choice but to impose a sentence that will keep you from committing further armed robberies.”
Presco had been out of jail almost three years when he burst into Russell South?s Eldersburg home in December and used computer cords and duct tape to tie up South?s 23-year-old daughter, Jamisson South, her fiancé, ChristopherJoel Sokol, and her brother, Garrett South, 20, prosecutors said.
When Garrett?s brother, Levi South, 26, came home, Presco kidnapped him, forcing him to drive to Randallstown to a check-cashing and lottery store where South worked, according to testimony, and Presco then robbed the store.
Before sentencing, Presco begged for mercy.
“I?d like to express apology for the incident and for my involvement,” he said. “I basically lost everything ? family, school ? and now I?m back in the situation I started, that I tried to change. I just ask for leniency.
“As time went on, I made a conscious decision to be a productive citizen,” Presco said, pointing out that he had gotten a job and tried to get his life together before the home invasion.
But State?s Attorney Jerry Barnes said Presco belonged behind bars for life.
“This is not a rehabilitation situation; this is not, ?Let?s give someone the light of hope,?” Barnes said. “Let?s not give this individual a second chance. This is an individual who has a constant propensity to commit violent crimes. He does not belong in civilized society. He has no right to walk among law-abiding citizens.”
