Tommy Robinson
Robinson, who used to frequent a Cedar Creek Lake-area gay bar, sentenced to 50 years
David Webb | Contributing Writer
davidwaynewebb@icloud.com
Tommy Robinson, the man convicted of attacking, robbing and sexually assaulting a teenage girl six years ago in Oak Lawn, used to hang out at a Cedar Creek Lake-area gay bar before his arrest in Dallas.
Robinson was convicted on Friday, March 2. On Saturday, March 3, he allegedly attempted suicide by overdosing on anti-psychotic medications, causing a one-day delay in the sentencing portion of his trial. He was sentenced Tuesday, March 6, to 50 years in prison, although he remained hospitalized following the overdose and so was not in court for sentencing.
Surveillance video from 2012 captured Robinson running up on the then-17-year-old girl as she walked to a Maple Avenue bus stop to go to school. He stabbed her in the chest and back and sexually assaulted her before leaving her left for dead behind a nearby furniture store. Employees of the store discovered her and called 9-1-1.
The girl was able to give police a description of her assailant and was able to pick him out of a police line-up.
When Robinson was arrested near the scene of the attack, he was naked from the waist down and bathing in a stream in the Oak Lawn area. He reportedly had a bloody knife in his boot and a cell phone similar to the one taken from the victim.
Robinson, who was 59 at the time of his arrest and is now 65, was jailed in Dallas on a $1.5 million bond. Questions about his mental competency and confinements in mental treatment facilities delayed his trial.
Robinson, also known as “Hollywood,” due to the silver-framed sunglasses he always wore, was a frequent visitor to Garlow’s nightclub, but he told other customers he was not gay. He also spoke often about how he suffered from a mental illness, explaining that was why he could not drink alcohol. He was characterized as eccentric but was generally viewed to be harmless.
A Dallas police detective in charge of investigating the crime confirmed he was aware Robinson had lived in the Cedar Creek Lake area prior to his arrest in Dallas. Gun Barrel City police report no unsolved sexual assault cases in the area.
Robinson is also said to go by the name Tommy King.
The victim has since graduated from high school and college, gaining a degree in education. She lives out-of-state with her sister but returned to Dallas to gain closure in the case and to thank all those who donated to a victim’s account at the time.
The man who found her said she was the hero for surviving such an ordeal.
The young woman said Robinson looked at her the whole time he was assaulting her and that before walking away, he told her to “have a nice life.”
But, “It didn’t make me any weaker,” she said in televised reports. “It actually made me stronger that he didn’t ruin my life, and I did have a nice life. What happens to you doesn’t define you. You define yourself everyday through your actions.”