Man gets 20 years for raping transgender college student

BRIDGEPORT — Clearly Tysaan Anderson wasn’t taking his situation seriously.

Facing sentencing Friday for robbing, beating and raping a transgender college student, Anderson turned around and smiled at family in the back of the courtroom and then stared mockingly into his lawyer’s face as the attorney tried speaking in complimentary terms about his client.

“It’s really said how one human being can so brutally treat another human being,” Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin lamented. “The victim ... has been shattered as a result of this.”

The judge then sentenced the 23-year-old Anderson, who previously pleaded guilty first-degree aggravated sexual assault and first-degree robbery, to 30 years, suspended after he serves 20 years in prison and followed by 20 years of probation.

Anderson was on probation in connection with the August 2012 fatal shooting of a Bridgeport high school student, when on Feb. 6, 2017, he saw the 22-year-old victim, who identifies as male, getting off a city bus.

The victim was walking home, listening to music on headphones when, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Colleen Zingaro said, Anderson struck the victim in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground. He then dragged the victim a driveway. When he realized, after going through the victim’s clothing, that the victim was anatomically female, Anderson beat and raped the victim, Zingaro said.

Anderson fled after taking the victim’s cell phone and money. The victim, who suffered a fractured eye socket, had to undergo facial reconstructive surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

“This had a very traumatic effect on the victim, and I don’t think the defendant understands how bad that was,” Zingaro continued as Anderson stood at the defense table, smiling.

Five days before the assault, police said, Anderson robbed a young woman at gunpoint in the city using a sport utility vehicle for his getaway. Police said he stole that vehicle from a man at gunpoint outside a store on Wayne Street.