A string of bad decisions got him three decades behind bars.
A Bedford-Stuyvesant man convicted of robbing four women at gunpoint in Kensington and Windsor Terrace — one of whom he pistol-whipped in the head — was sentenced to 31 years in prison on Wednesday after he chose to forgo a plea deal, a regrettable choice in retrospect, according to his attorney.
“The pre-trial plea offer that he was given was very good at the time — and, at this time, is incredible,” said Larry Rothstein. “It is a very severe sentence.”
A jury found Justin Farrow, 31, guilty in May for committing the string of late-night stickups over a nine-day span in August 2015, which included one attack where he repeatedly bashed a 28-year-old woman with the butt of his gun.
Prosecutors offered him a deal of 18-to-20-years imprisonment leading up to his trial, on charges that included a fifth robbery of which he was later acquitted.
Police caught Farrow — who, in each incident, approached his victims holding a silver pistol and nabbed their valuables before using MetroCards he stole from them to escape into the nearest subway station — after a witness who saw the man flee from the Aug. 29 holdup spotted him a second time on Sept. 4 and promptly called 911.
Cops nabbed the robber after he tried to dispose of a loaded nine-millimeter handgun, according to the District Attorney’s office, and found him in possession of stolen MetroCards and wearing a fleur-de-lis–patterned shirt recognized by no less than three of his victims.
Rothstein said his client was a good man driven to do bad things after his life went to pieces when he lost his job as a security guard.
“He just completely lost it,” the lawyer said. “I’ve met so many truly evil guys, and he’s not one of them. Up until this, he was a law abiding, rational citizen, and then one day the train just went off the tracks.”
