By Anna Gustafson
Queens Supreme Court Judge Gregory Lasak called the man who beat and robbed two elderly Queens women “disgusting” and said he will grow “lonely and old” in state prison, where the judge sentenced him to 75 years Wednesday.
Former Long Island City resident Jack Rhodes, 47, was sentenced after a jury found him guilty in October on 13 charges, including assault and robbery as a hate crime, for attacks that took place in 2006 and 2007. Rhodes violently assaulted and robbed 101-year-old Jamaica Estates resident Rose Morat and 85-year-old Jamaica resident Solange Elizee on March 4, 2007, the DA said.
Rhodes was also convicted of assault and robbery charges in the mugging of 51-year-old Angela Khan in Jamaica on Dec. 30, 2006, the DA said.
“You’ll get lonely and old up there,” Lasak told Rhodes of the upstate prison. “I wonder if, when you are old, young inmates will show you the same respect you showed Rose Morat, Solange Elizee, and Angela Khan.”
Lasak told Rhodes he was giving him 75 years, or “one year for every dollar you stole from the women.”
“You viciously beat Angela Khan and kicked her in the face when she was down,” Lasak said. “You know what you got for that? Ten dollars. Rose Morat was going to mass at Immaculate Conception when you offered to open the door for her… you punched her with a left hook, a right hook in the face as she’s clinging to her walker. That’s disgusting.”
Khan was present at the sentencing and said she was pleased Rhodes was sentenced to 75 years, although she had hoped he would have gotten more. Rhodes could have received a maximum of 90 years in prison.
“Life is too short, and you almost took mine away,” Khan said to Rhodes during the sentencing. “What you did was very wrong, very bad. I hope you learned your lesson.”
Assistant District Attorney Eugene Reibstein read a letter from the now 103-year-old Morat.
“He left me in a pool of blood,” Reibstein read. “Atrocities done frequently by Jack Rhodes must be stopped.”
Rhodes said at the sentencing that he believed he had not received a fair trial nor was he the man who committed the muggings of which he was found guilty.
“I’m sorry these crimes happened to you, but I’m not the man who committed these crimes,” Rhodes said, addressing Khan in the courtroom.
Lasak told Rhodes he had not only received one fair trial, he had received two.
Rhodes’ first trial was declared a mistrial by Lasak in December 2008 after a jury forewoman complained she had missed too much work during the month-long trial and needed to leave the proceeding to visit her mother.
Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 174.
