Alejandro Aulman was sentenced Thursday in Anchorage to 50 years in prison for a crime spree more than two years ago that left three victims severely injured and many more reeling from a string of robberies.
Superior Court Judge Philip Volland said the unprovoked, severe violence committed by Aulman warranted the lengthy sentence.
"I would assess his prospects for rehabilitation as grim," Volland said, adding that confinement and deterring others from committing similar offenses rose to the top of his sentencing criteria.
The judge imposed an additional two years for breaking his probation conditions from two separate cases charged in the mid-2000s.
Aulman, 27, was indicted in February 2013 on nine counts of assault, seven counts of robbery, three counts of burglary and one count of theft involving eight separate cases, police reported at that time.
When a grand jury handed up that list of charges, Aulman was already in jail, accused of attacking a woman who accepted a ride from him in the neighborhood of Fairview. He was charged with demanding the woman's purse, striking her in the face and then shooting her in the hand.
According to the state's sentencing memorandum filed Wednesday, Aulman committed a spree of robberies at homes and businesses leading up to the shooting.
Two home invasions ended in victims suffering life-threatening injuries.
As part of a plea agreement, Aulman gave a sworn statement to the court. In a summary of the statement, he said on Jan. 2, 2013, he "knocked on the door at the home of an elderly man I had not previously met named Robert Pettit … with the intention of using force to steal from him," the statement says. Aulman took a firearm from Pettit; he hit him several times in the head with another gun.
During Thursday's sentencing, Pettit said the man who appeared on his doorstep and asked to use the phone had the butt of a gun sticking out of his pocket. The 84-year-old said he didn't think much of it -- "It's Alaska," he said -- but decided to arm himself before returning to the front door with his phone.
Pettit said he doesn't remember what happened next. He woke up the next morning with his face covered in blood. Six-hundred dollars Pettit had stored in a cooler was missing, as well as his gun and the $2 he had in his wallet.
On the same day, Aulman tried to rob a Subway. In the following days, he tried to do the same at two other restaurants and a hotel, Aulman's statement says.
On Jan. 11, 2013, Aulman knocked on the front door of Sandra Upton's home; he'd also never met the woman, the statement says. He got inside by telling her his car broke down and he needed to use the phone, and once inside, he repeatedly hit her with the gun he'd taken from Pettit about a week earlier, the statement says.
Upton said she is still dumbfounded by the encounter. She recalled Aulman cursing at her during the beating.
"That's why it felt like a personal attack," she said before pointing out to the court the scars above her eyebrows, permanent reminders of the day she opened her home to a stranger she thought was in need.
Upton, 76, said she believes in forgiveness but didn't yet think she was ready to forgive her assailant.
The state asked for a sentence of 62 1/2 years: 20 years for assaulting Pettit, another 20 years for assaulting Upton, 10 years for hitting and shooting the woman he picked up in Fairview, 10 years for a robbery count that covers all his attempts at stealing from businesses and homes, and 30 months for breaking probation conditions.
It argued the lengthy sentence was warranted due to Aulman's rap sheet. In 2007, Aulman, then 20, was charged along with his girlfriend in a rash of break-ins. Stolen property worth more than $100,000 was found in the couple's East Anchorage apartment.
Assistant attorney general Adam Alexander said there were no objective factors that illustrate Aulman's propensity toward violent behavior. The prosecutor characterized Aulman as a seemingly normal man who preyed on the kindness of others.
But when Aulman spoke, he said there was much missing from the state's argument, like the fact that he was abandoned at an orphanage as a child and his unsuccessful attempts to get substance abuse treatment. He said he couldn't afford the cost.
"I accept whatever sentence you give me with a humble heart," Aulman told the judge.
"From an outside perspective, everyone will think I'm a monster. I wish they could see my mind and heart," he said in conclusion.
Judge Volland, however, said Aulman's reaction to supervised release had been to commit more crimes. Few cases that don't involve homicide warrant such a long sentence, he said, but Aulman's did.