photo by: Mugshot courtesy of the Kansas Department of Corrections

Chester Wendell Brockman is pictured with the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

A Lawrence man who has racked up 37 criminal convictions in the past 30 years was sentenced on Tuesday to 17 years in prison for invading a Lawrence woman’s home at gunpoint and robbing her.

Douglas County District Court Judge Stacey Donovan handed down the sentence to Chester Wendell Brockman, 52, after finding no substantial or compelling reasons for a lighter term and citing the “sheer quantity of convictions over the years” and the many times that probation had been extended to Brockman without any positive results.

In January, a jury found Brockman guilty of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated burglary for an incident in the summer of 2022 in which he and another man forced their way into a home on Bainbridge Circle in west Lawrence, as a woman held a 2-year-old child, and stole thousands of dollars in cash and other items, as the Journal-World reported.

Donovan gave Brockman 206 months for the robbery conviction and 41 months for the burglary conviction, to run concurrently, for a controlling sentence of just over 17 years. Brockman has been in custody 766 days, or nearly two years, and will get credit for that time.

Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald sought even more time, over 22 years altogether, citing Brockman’s criminal history and the fact that he committed the Lawrence home invasion while he was on probation for aggravated assault in Wyandotte County.

“He quite frankly can’t be reformed,” Greenwald told the judge.

Razmi Tahirkheli, Brockman’s attorney, in his plea for leniency, told the court that 22 years would be “a lifetime for Mr. Brockman,” who he said had led a troubled life, including having “mental issues,” being unable to speak until his mid-teens and being unable, to the present day, to read.

Greenwald said those challenges, while unfortunate, didn’t mean that Brockman lacked the capacity to exercise basic judgment.

“He knows it’s wrong to pull a gun on someone, invade their home and take their property,” he said.

The victim of the crime was present at Tuesday’s sentencing, but did not address the court. Brockman’s sister, however, made an impassioned plea for leniency, saying her brother had “mental things going on” and was simply gullible “follower.” She acknowledged his long history of criminal behavior but insisted that he was not violent and had not pulled a gun on a person.

“A gun? Not Chester,” she told the court. “If you put your purse down, he might (steal) it. Drugs? Yeah,” but not a gun.

Tahirkheli also told the court that Brockman was appealing the jury’s verdict and remained adamant that he didn’t have a gun in his hand and didn’t invade the home that June day in 2022. “He knocked,” Tahirkheli said, “because his nephew told him to” and “he’s easily manipulated.”

The nephew, Markcus Trey Sanders, is also facing charges in the burglary and robbery and is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing in the matter on Nov. 25.

In Douglas County, Brockman, in addition to the two most recent convictions, has multiple felony convictions, including three theft convictions in 2015, aggravated battery in 2013 and multiple felony drug convictions, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.