photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured in March of 2022. The center houses the Douglas County District Court and other county services.

An Olathe man was granted probation on Thursday for his part in a 2019 armed robbery and home invasion, for which his co-defendants have been serving time in prison for years.

The man, Anei Deng Anei-Yor, 27, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of robbery in November 2024, and Judge Stacey Donovan sentenced him on Thursday to 64 months in prison and suspended that sentence to three years of probation. Anei-Yor was originally charged with seven counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of kidnapping and one count of aggravated burglary, but the charges were reduced as a part of a plea agreement.

Donovan, who could have sentenced Anei-Yor to either prison or probation under the state sentencing guidelines, made her decision after hearing from Anei-Yor, two of Anei-Yor’s family members and two women who were victims of the robbery.

The robbery victims, both appearing by videoconference, described the incident on Sept. 15, 2019, in the 1700 block of Sycamore Circle as terrifying and violent. They recalled how multiple men broke in, threatened the seven people who were there and ransacked the premises.

Both women said they were studying at the time of the break-in — “It was just a regular Sunday night doing homework,” one of them said.

One recalled how two men burst into her room, put a gun to her head and a knife to her throat and forced her to lie down beside the apartment’s other occupants. The other said that while she was lying face down on the floor in fear for her life, Anei-Yor was particularly aggressive toward her. He was “patting me down, even though he knew I didn’t have pockets, and shoving my face into the floor,” she said.

As the Journal-World previously reported, Anei-Yor was accused of taking multiple cellphones, computers, other electronics and wallets during the incident. But the women said he took more than that — he also took away their sense of safety.

One of the women said she had major issues with anxiety after the incident and had become paranoid when meeting new people. She said she had moved far away from Lawrence after the crime but has had to fly back multiple times, only for the case to be delayed over and over again. Both said they thought the case had dragged on for too long without a resolution, and they urged the judge to sentence Anei-Yor to prison.

“I ask you grant him adequate jail time,” one of the women said. “It’s not fair that he has roamed free for years without a care.”

Anei-Yor said that he had changed after “what happened that night,” and that he thinks about the events almost every night. He said he realized now that “things like that are not OK.”

Since the incident, he said, he has completed a psychology degree from Paul Quinn University in Texas, where he also played basketball. He said he would plan to work in the Kansas City area as a basketball trainer if he were granted probation.

“From the bottom of my heart, I apologize,” Anei-Yor said.

Anei-Yor’s brother and sister both spoke on his behalf. His brother, Yor Anei, who plays professional basketball for the Wisconsin Herd in the NBA’s G-League, said his brother has always been someone he looked up to and helped make him into the man he is today. And his sister, Alouette Gardner, said that Anei-Yor was a compassionate person who had suffered emotionally since the incident.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal, on the other hand, said he believed probation wasn’t appropriate. He said Anei-Yor had failed to take responsibility for his crimes despite his guilty plea, and that even his statement in court on Thursday failed to show responsibility. Leal noted that Anei-Yor described the event as “something that happened” and not “what I did.”

Anei-Yor’s attorney, Michael Kinder, said that Anei-Yor was addicted to marijuana and that he recently had a drug and alcohol evaluation to address that issue. He said that Anei-Yor was high and drunk the night of the incident and had not committed any violent offenses since then.

Leal responded that addiction wasn’t an excuse for this type of crime, and said that granting probation because of a marijuana addiction would send a message to violent criminals that smoking marijuana would be a great way to get out of trouble.

Donovan said she was not granting probation based on the addiction. Rather, she said that it was clear that Anei-Yor was different from his two co-defendants, who had already been convicted and are currently serving prison sentences.

photo by: Kansas Department of Corrections

Fredrick Kyree Carter, left, and Donte Malik Lindsey, right.

The co-defendants are Fredrick Kyree Carter and Donte Malik Lindsey, both 27. Carter was sentenced to 43 months in prison in March of 2023, and Lindsey was sentenced to 51 months in December 2021, according to court records. But Donovan said both of those men had significant criminal histories prior to the incident, while Anei-Yor had no other convictions before or since.

Donovan concluded that mental health and drug treatment would work better than prison time to prevent Anei-Yor from reoffending, and that Anei-Yor had already shown that he could be a productive member of society.