Tacoma man sentenced for groping women during break-in at Pacific Lutheran University
A 33-year-old Tacoma man who pleaded guilty to burglary and indecent liberties for breaking into apartments at a Pacific Lutheran University dorm last year and groping two students was sentenced Wednesday to five years to life in prison.
Dylan Thomas Robinson broke into the college’s South Hall in the early hours of May 14, 2023, in Parkland by removing a window screen on the first floor and then entering an apartment occupied by three women. According to Robinson’s guilty plea, he grabbed one woman’s arm and chest before he left. A little more than an hour later, he went into another apartment where he grabbed a woman’s crotch and breasts while she slept.
Standing in a Pierce County Superior Court room Wednesday morning, that woman recalled the details of the sexual assault, awaking to Robinson standing over her with his hands on her and having to fight him off while he tried to jump onto her raised bed. She said she realized the man’s pants were down while chasing him out of the room.
The News Tribune generally does not name victims of sex crimes.
The trauma of that assault was devastating, she said. Reminders of the incident cause her to break down into panic attacks, she said, and she still has specialized counseling ahead of her.
“Before I go to bed, I have to double check that all the doors and windows in my house are locked including my own bedroom door,” she said. “I wake up terrified other nights and have flashbacks due to what Dylan Robinson did to me.”
Robinson pleaded guilty Nov. 6 to first-degree burglary with sexual motivation and indecent liberties, a felony sex crime that will require him to register as a sex offender once he is released from prison.
The sentence he was given is indeterminate, meaning that once Robinson serves the minimum term of 65 months, he will have to petition the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board for release.
The first woman Robinson groped said in court that she was afraid of the dark for months afterward, even in her childhood home and on a trip to Europe. She said she blamed herself for what happened for a long time, but she was thankful to her therapist, partner, friends and family for convincing her otherwise.
“Nothing I could have done could have provoked it, and there is nothing any of us could have possibly done to deserve it,” she said. “This was the act of one person. Because of him, my life and the life of people I love were changed forever.”
Two other women who were present for the break-ins and the mother of a victim also addressed the court during the sentencing hearing. One student said she had to leave her junior year of college early because she couldn’t focus on schoolwork after the incident. The other said Robinson introduced her to a version of herself who can’t sleep without a weapon on hand and senses threats when there are none around.
The mother said the trauma of Robinson’s assault had rippled through the lives of her daughter’s family and friends. She called the defendant a “sad, sad little man” and called for the harshest sentence possible.
Prosecutors and the defendant’s attorney agreed to recommend a low-end sentence to Judge Gretchen Leanderson of about 4-and-a-half years, which included a 24-month sexual motivation sentencing enhancement. The judge decided to impose an additional 10 months in prison.
Leanderson told Robinson his actions were reprehensible and that he’d had an impact on the sense of security of the women he victimized and others who live on campus in a place that is supposed to be safe and secure.
“They will be living with this for the rest of their lives,” Leanderson said. “I hope you get the help that you need because, sir, you definitely need help, but I need to be sure that you are away from the opportunity to impose any further harm on women out in the community.”
Robinson’s defense attorney, Bryan Hershman, said that he and Robinson feel for the victims and that every word they said had cut through them.
Hershman also said he wanted to calm them with the information that his client would likely get no more than 5-and-a-half months off his sentence for good behavior in the Department of Corrections, and it was his experience that the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board holds offenders in prison for as long as five years past their minimum release date.
The defense attorney said he met Robinson five or 10 years ago in another criminal matter, and at the time the man was “driftless” and hard to talk to. Hershman said today Robinson was not defined by the man he met years ago, and he wasn’t defined by the man he met 19 months ago, when Robinson was arrested.
“Crisis breeds cure,” Hershman said. “He’s looked in the mirror. He’s recognized his shortcomings, and I’m happy to tell you, and I’m happy to tell these young ladies who have been traumatized — and I, from the bottom of my heart I am sorry to them, as is my client — he’s changed.”
Robinson was then given a chance to speak. He said he wanted to apologize to the judge and the victims, and as a man of God he hoped that one day they could forgive them. He said he was a victim of rape as a child, and he feels what the women in this case are going through.
“All I can do is apologize, and I never want that harm to go through them ever again,” Robinson said.
