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Man gets 30-60 years for rape and robbery of Chinatown business owner

Almost two years later, the victim remained so traumatized, she could not speak at Thursday's sentencing of admitted rapist Brandon Menley.

Almost two years later, the victim remained so traumatized, she could not speak at Thursday's sentencing of admitted rapist Brandon Menley.

But after she left the Philadelphia courtroom in tears during a break, the woman returned to court, and Assistant District Attorney Branwen McNabb read aloud her handwritten note.

"I think this is a tremendous example of her strength," McNabb told Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart. "She says she 'accepts the defendant's family's apology and she forgives him in her heart' but she 'is fearful this will happen to someone else.' "

Minehart agreed, sentencing the 31-year-old former Reading man to 30 to 60 years in prison, followed by 15 years' probation and registration as a sex offender.

About 8:30 a.m. Oct. 5, 2014, a Sunday, the victim was working in her business on North Ninth Street in Chinatown when a man walked into the office and cornered her in a back hallway.

Then, in an attack recorded on the business' security cameras, the man repeatedly hit the woman on the head with a hammer concealed in a plastic bag and choked her until she was almost unconscious. The video then showed the attacker guiding the victim into a bathroom, where the rape occurred.

Police arrested Menley the next day at the North Philadelphia homeless shelter where he was living. The video clearly showed Menley's face, McNabb said, and in addition, Menley took $650 in cash from the victim and went on a spending spree, buying new clothing and a cellphone.

McNabb said receipts for the clothing and phone were found in a rented storage locker along with the hammer used in the attack.

Defense attorney Daniel J. O'Riordan urged Minehart to reject McNabb's recommended sentence of 41 to 82 years in prison, saying Menley immediately gave a statement to police and entered an open guilty plea to all charges, including rape, aggravated assault, robbery, and false imprisonment.

"He prevented anyone from having to testify about what happened here," O'Riordan said.

O'Riordan also presented testimony from Menley's mother, stepfather, and other relatives, who detailed a troubled childhood in which he was abandoned as a teen by his distant biological father, and sexually assaulted on the street. The teen slipped into drug and alcohol use after two car crashes left him with brain injuries.

Menley wiped away tears as his mother, Julie, described how his father abandoned him because he no longer wanted to pay child support.

"I apologize to the victim and her family for the mental and physical pain caused by Brandon," she said.

Menley, in a soft monotone, said: "I'm sorry for what I did, and it will never happen again."

O'Riordan said Menley's ability to speak publicly was impaired by his brain injuries.

McNabb told Minehart that despite Menley's deprived childhood, brain trauma, and homelessness, at the time of the rape he was attending a technical school and had a 3.83 grade-point average.

McNabb also noted that the victim recalled Menley'a coming into her business twice before the attack and that one time she had to ask him to leave. The video showed him enter and leave the business, plastic bag in hand, several times the morning of the attack.

"This was not an impromptu act," McNabb said. "It was premeditated each and every step of the way."

jslobodzian@phillynews.com 215-854-2985 @joeslobo

www.philly.com/crimeandpunishment