Ex-deputy gets 5-10 for shooting

Robin Green entered courtrooms for 13 years wearing a blue uniform, a badge and a gun as a deputy sheriff in the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office.

But yesterday, Green, 50, the mother of three, walked into court with a black home-detention ankle bracelet - as a defendant, not a guard.

Convicted by a Common Pleas jury in February of aggravated assault and possessing an instrument of crime, Green was sentenced to five to 10 years in state prison and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to her victim - a Point Breeze neighbor whom she had shot in the groin.

Assistant District Attorney Kendra McCrae asked that Green's sentence start immediately.

But Judge Harold Kane gave her two weeks to get her affairs in order before reporting to prison. (She had been on home detention since being convicted.)

During the hearing, McCrae pushed for Green to get a sentence of eight to 16 years, arguing that the disgraced deputy sheriff forgot about the law and "went hunting" for Donald Brown on the afternoon of April 30, 2007.

Green's rage had been prompted by the belief that Brown and two others had burglarized her family's home on 18th Street near Tasker, said her attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr.

She had been the victim of about four previous break-ins committed by neighborhood drug addicts, including Brown, Perri said.

McCrae, however, said there was no evidence that Brown, 55, had taken part in the burglaries.

McCrae said Green had driven a short distance to Brown's home on Dorrance Street near Tasker, knocked on the door, then used her service firearm to shoot him once in the groin after he opened the door.

She fled - leaving Brown clinging to life in a pool of blood - and didn't bother to call 9-1-1, McCrae told the judge when making her bid for a longer sentence.

"He spent months in the hospital. Look at him," she said of Brown, a frail man who sat slightly hunched over with family members in the front row.

Before being sentenced, Green tearfully apologized to Brown - who had been a classmate at South Philadelphia High School. She denied intentionally hurting him and held herself up as a victim of his break-ins. "I never aimed my gun at him. He got shot in a struggle," she insisted.

In handing down the sentence, Kane expressed sympathy for Green, who worked four years as a correctional officer before becoming a deputy sheriff.

"I know your house was burglarized and how frustrating these things can be," he told her.

After the hearing Perri said the sentence was the mandatory-minimum term that Green could have received, and that it was fair.

"Unfortunately, she went above and beyond what she's legally entitled to do under the circumstances," he said.

Brown, who spent three months in the hospital, said that he had never broken into Green's home and that he has forgiven her.

"We grew up together; we went to school together," he said.

His sister Patricia Evans said: "We don't celebrate this. We just wanted closure.

"My brother was almost dead. It's just been a long haul.

"But in the end, justice has to be served."