Ohio man gets 65 years for terrorizing elderly couple

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CINCINNATI -- Darian Lawrence's belief in the divine helped him and Raj Houston get arrested last year for an Amberley Village, Ohio, home-invasion robbery.

Houston continued that Biblical theme Tuesday when he claimed his conviction of 13 crimes was unjust because he wasn't there to rob the elderly couple. He was there, he insisted, to act as an angel of mercy and spare them from any harm Lawrence could cause them.

"I just wanted justice myself," Houston, 21, of Lima, Ohio, said Tuesday. "I didn't want 18 years of my life" taken away.

That drew a harsh response from Judge Charles Kubicki Jr. of Hamilton County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court, who sentenced Houston to the maximum -- 65.5 years in prison.

"You've committed horrible and despicable crimes," the judge told Houston. "You terrorized an elderly couple in the sanctity of their own home. You held them at gunpoint. You robbed them and left them begging for their lives."

Houston and Lawrence, 20, of Golf Manor, Ohio, knocked on the door of the couple, ages 80 and 78, on July 11. Houston and Lawrence pulled guns and robbed the couple. They forced one, at gunpoint, to withdraw money from an ATM, then stole their car.

They were caught after Lawrence reached into the couple's vehicle to get its keys. The bracelet Lawrence was wearing left an imprint on the soft cloth inside the vehicle's door.

It cited Ephesians 6:10-11, telling man to "Put on the whole armor of God" to be protected from "the schemes of the devil."

When police questioned Lawrence, he was wearing the bracelet. On their cell phones, Houston and Lawrence also had pictures of them smoking cigars they'd stolen from the couple and other incriminating evidence.

Lawrence has accepted a plea deal and was sent to prison for 18 years.