GOSHEN — A scheme to use prostitution as the gateway for a robbery in Goshen led to a dozen-year prison sentence for a 22-year-old woman.
Anastasia Lebbin was sentenced to 12 years in prison and 10 years of probation on three counts of armed robbery during a hearing in Elkhart County Circuit Court Thursday.
Lebbin pleaded guilty to the Level 3 felony charges in October, admitting to her role in the robbery of a Goshen man and his parents three years ago. Three other felony counts of criminal confinement were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
Lebbin was arrested in suburban Chicago on a warrant last December.
According to case information, the male victim in the case solicited Lebbin online for sex in December 2015. During their meeting in the basement of his parents’ home along Bayberry Drive, Lebbin sent a text, signaling two men to come to the house. The men soon broke in and, with at least one of them armed with a handgun, held the victim and his parents at gunpoint, threatening them while stealing cash and electronics.
Sometime after the robbery, Lebbin met another man, quit heroin “cold turkey,” had a child with the man, moved to Illinois and got a job, her attorney, Christopher Crawford, told the court, arguing for leniency in the sentence. Lebbin previously lived in South Bend, court information shows.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Don Pitzer rejected Crawford’s argument as minimizing Lebbin’s role in the robbery, saying he was unimpressed with a depiction of her as a “wilting flower” caught up in the criminal acts of others.
“She was the call-girl that went into the house,” Pitzer said, pointing out she still faces a robbery case with similar circumstances in Michigan.
Lebbin apologized to the victim and his family for the trauma they endured.
“I can only imagine how many sleepless nights you’ve had,” Lebbin said in court. “I pray one day for your forgiveness.”
She also said her son, now nearly 2 years old, is her motivation to stay off drugs and live a positive life.
Judge Michael Christofeno weighed Lebbin’s move to quit drugs and turn her life around, the several letters of support he received from family and friends, and that her legal history doesn’t include prior criminal convictions against what he described the “horrific acts” of robbery and criminal confinement, which were set up through prostitution.
“You seem to be on the right track, but I have to hold you accountable for those acts,” Christofeno told Lebbin.
Christofeno’s sentence, holding to parameters of the plea agreement, called for a 12-year prison term on one of the robbery counts to run consecutively with the 10-year term that was suspended to probation on the other two robbery counts.
One of the men involved in the robbery, Raydez Ware, 22, South Bend, was sentenced to 25 years in prison and 11 years of probation on Oct. 25 after he pleaded guilty to three counts of armed robbery. That sentence will run consecutive to the 5–15-year prison term Ware’s already serving in Michigan, court information shows.
Ware was convicted of robbery and criminal confinement charges in 2016 in a case where a Berrien County man was robbed after he reportedly hired Lebbin for sex in November 2015, one month before the robbery in Goshen.
PROBATION VIOLATION
Several other hearings were held in Circuit Court Thursday.
Among them, Steven Sells, 45, Wakarusa, was sent back to prison for a couple years after Judge Christofeno found he violated his probation in a methamphetamine-dealing case.
Sells admitted to violations by missing an appointment with his probation officer and failing to submit to a drug test around late April–early May 2017, but he denied a charge he also used methamphetamine around the same time.
Sells’ probation officer, Andrea Letherman, testified under questioning by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Don Pitzer that Sells’ attorney at the time provided a document from Elkhart General Hospital stating a drug screen showed Sells tested positive for meth in April 2017.
Pitzer also argued Sells previously violated his probation twice due to drugs in the past few years.
Sells’ attorney, Christopher Crawford, argued the document Pitzer introduced as evidence was one page out of a 37-page record, and it didn’t provide the data from the drug screen or give the whole context of the hospital visit.
Sells, who’s diabetic, said under questioning that while having severe health issues at the time he told health care providers about his past meth use, and he believed that’s what was communicated in the document. He also suggested a positive drug screen could have been the result of meth particles transferring into his system from smoke or residue created by other users.
Christofeno sided with Pitzer that the hospital document met the burden of evidence of a violation, then called the case “somewhat of a moot point,” since Sells admitted to violating probation for other reasons apart from the drug screen.
Sells started probation in September 2013 after serving prison time as a result of pleading guilty to a charge of dealing methamphetamine in 2009. He was arrested for the probation violation as a result of the drug screen in July 2017.
Christofeno revoked Sells’ probation, sentencing him to serve the rest of the time in prison with an order to be placed in a therapeutic drug program.
INITIAL HEARING
Brent Ottman, 25, Elkhart, made his initial appearance in court to face a Level 4 felony charge of possession of methamphetamine and misdemeanor charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and driving with a suspended license.
Ottman was arrested in Elkhart on Nov. 29.
Judge Christofeno entered a not-guilty plea on Ottman’s behalf, and Ottman said he plans to hire a private attorney for the case.
Christofeno also set April 1, 2019 as the start of Ottman’s trial and took his request for a bond reduction under consideration.
Aimee Ambrose can be reached at aimee.ambrose@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 316.
