3 siblings to be sentenced together for abusing mom

A Kane County judge intends to sentence three siblings at the same time for the abuse and neglect of their elderly mother.

Kevin, Connie and Alan Roberson of Aurora have all pleaded guilty to felony abuse and neglect of an elderly person, in a case brought in October 2011. It is punishable by probation to up to five years in prison.

Kevin Roberson's sentencing hearing was Wednesday. Connie and Alan will have theirs Aug. 9.

Judge Clint Hull said Wednesday that it would not be right for him to pronounce sentence on Kevin Roberson until he has heard the evidence against the other two, because there are issues regarding the siblings' roles and responsibilities for the care of their 77-year-old mother.

For his part, Kevin Roberson Wednesday offered an apology.

“I'm sorry for what had happened. ... I love my mother very much, and I miss her,” he said, sobbing.

Assistant Public Defender Judy Kullenberg said Kevin Roberson was gone much of the time, working 60 to 70 hours a week, and that Connie Roberson had the primary responsibility of caring for the mother. She also said he couldn't have seen several of her bedsores, including a severe one near the mother's tailbone, because he never saw his mother naked.

He did see maggots on her gangrenous right foot, though, and told his siblings they should call an ambulance, Kullenberg said.

Kullenberg argued that Kevin Roberson should be given probation. His job at an Addison injection-molding firm is waiting for him, his supervisor testified Wednesday, and Kullenberg suggested that he could be ordered to pay something toward the cost of his mother's stay in the DeKalb nursing home where she now lives.

She also asked that he be allowed to visit his mother; she said the mother doesn't know what has happened to her children, and thinks they have left.

Assistant State's Attorney Debra Bree, while saying she didn't think there was any malice involved, argued for the maximum sentence of five years in prison.

“As much as he wants to say, 'She's my mother and I didn't want to see her naked,' he couldn't even cut her toenails,'” she said in closing, showing pictures of toenails overgrown by an inch.

“He failed to give her the common courtesy of a bath, the common courtesy of cutting her toenails, the common courtesy of not letting her sit in her own filth,” Bree said.

Aurora Police Detective Andrew Wolcott testified that when he searched the Randall Road house where they lived, he discovered that Connie and Kevin had their own bedrooms, and Allan slept on a couch in the family room. The mother sat and slept on a love seat in the family room, even though there was also a daybed there, as she had become immobile. There were dried feces and urine on the love seat and its cushions, he testified.

He also said there was an open bag of charcoal under the daybed, which he thought was an unusual place to store it. He said he suspected it was there to absorb odors.

An abuse investigator from Senior Services Associates testified that when she was called to the hospital to see the mother, an “overwhelming” odor filled the room. The mother's right leg was amputated due to gangrene. She also had head lice and scabies. Bree also said the Robersons were taking advantage of their mother, and were worried about where they would live if they put their mother in a nursing home, because they relied on her pension and Social Security income to pay the rent. Alan was working for a temporary agency, Connie was doing baby-sitting for a relative, and Kevin paid for the utilities. They called the ambulance the day after one of those checks was direct-deposited, which was one day after Kevin noticed the maggots.

Wolcott also testified the Robersons told him the mother had fired a home health care worker who came to the house after the mother was released from a hospital in June 2011, and that she refused to go to see a doctor.

The Robersons are in Kane County jail until their sentencing.