Schenectady

For seven years, Herman Robinson sexually preyed upon a young girl, impregnated her, then killed their baby girl moments after her first breaths in 2010.

Robinson met his day of reckoning Friday — and it could send him to prison on a sentence of 100 years to life.

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Coccoma found Robinson guilty of all charges at a non-jury trial that revealed abuse including evidence Robinson used his fists and a coat hanger to try to end the pregnancy of the victim he began raping years earlier when she was 11.

Robinson, 39, a prior convicted felon, will be sentenced on May 27 by Coccoma in County Court on his convictions of second-degree murder, first- and second-degree rape, predatory sexual assault of child, course of sexual conduct against a child and child endangerment.

The judge, who started deliberating Tuesday, delivered the verdict just after 3 p.m.

The victim, grasping her mother's hand, beamed a smile upon hearing the verdict. She scowled at Robinson as he was escorted out by deputies.

Prosecutors praised the young woman, now 20, for having the courage to testify against Robinson during the three-week trial. She is now a college student and is studying criminal justice.

"This is somebody who is like a phoenix. (She) has risen from ashes and is now living."" Assistant District Attorney Tracey Brunecz told reporters at a post-verdict news conference, joined by fellow prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Christina Tremante.

The victim and her mother attended the news conference in the grand jury room of the courthouse, held by District Attorney Robert Carney.

"She's strong, she's bright and she's very brave," Carney said. "And despite what he did to her, she has a very promising future."

He said his office will ask Coccoma to impose the maximum sentence of 100 years to life in prison, adding, "We believe really that he does deserve that ... he robbed (the victim) of her childhood and her first-born child."

Coccoma, the state's deputy chief administrative judge for all courts outside New York City, heard the trial starting April 6 after Robinson waived his right to a jury trial.

Robinson faced what Brunecz described as a "perfect storm" of evidence that included the victim's direct testimony, his confessions and DNA evidence.

Robinson's torment of the girl was first revealed on Dec. 10, 2013, when police found a suicide note he left after trying to kill himself by taking painkillers in a Lenox Road home.

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In the note, Robinson said he allowed "lust" to overcome his rational thought process and apologized to his family.

"Don't let my death sadden you," he wrote. "Don't cry for me. Burn my body (and) dump it in a sewer. Cause it's what I deserve."

He also left little doubt about what he had done to the victim.

"All my life I done nothing but (expletive) up, made the wrong choices," he said in a misspelled note. "The worst of them all was when I chose to creep in (the girl)'s room and molested her and for six years I been rapping (sic) her and once got her pregnant then killed the baby."

The note prompted police to investigate the allegations, which resulted in Robinson's arrest three days later at Ellis Hospital, where he was being treated.

Brunecz and Tremante had DNA and blood evidence from a box spring that proved the existence of the baby whom Robinson is now convicted of murdering. The evidence showed the mother of the baby to be the victim and the father to be Robinson.

Robinson's attorney, Sven Paul, the chief trial attorney for the Schenectady County public defender's office, said he would not comment until after his client's sentencing.

Robinson, who knew the girl and her mother, began molesting the child in 2006 in a Pleasant Street home when she was entering sixth-grade; the attacks progressed from touching to rape and forced oral sex, prosecutors said.

Robinson got the girl pregnant in the summer of June 2009. She hid the pregnancy from her mother, wearing baggy clothes. Robinson tried to end the pregnancy, Brunecz said in her opening statement, by pushing and punching the girl's stomach and using a coat hanger hoping to cause a miscarriage.

When the infant was born March 11, 2010, Robinson placed his hand over her mouth and smashed the baby's head on the floor, Brunecz said. When he left the room, the girl cradled her now-deceased child momentarily before Robinson returned and placed the baby in a plastic garbage bag. He told the girl he buried her under or near rocks.

The rapes continued even after the girl left the area to go to college. Schenectady Detective Lt. James Sanders testified that in 2013, when the girl was away at school, Robinson contacted her in one year with 309 Skype messages and 793 texts, calls and emails.

When Robinson learned the girl was partying at school, he waited until she returned to the area in November 2013 and raped her in a bathroom as punishment, prosecutors said.

The girl sent Robinson a lengthy text-message on Dec. 10, 2013 confronting him over his years of rape and the murder. It was later that day that Robinson tried to commit suicide.