An Ohio man who shot a woman in the face, threw her baby into the snow and stole her vehicle has been sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.
Ronald Loftis, 47, was convicted in June in connection with two violent robberies that happened on the same day in Cleveland earlier this year.
He was found guilty of three counts of aggravated robbery, four counts of robbery, three counts of felonious assault, one count of unlawful use of a weapon by a career criminal, one count of having weapons under disability and one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle.
Loftis was later sentenced to 51 to 56.5 years in prison, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley announced on Tuesday, July 7.
“Ronald Loftis is a violent predator who terrorized women and children on Cleveland’s Near West Side,” O’Malley said in a news release.
Prosecutors said the violence began around 7 a.m. on Jan. 2, when Loftis approached a 28-year-old woman at a bus stop near West 25th Street and Clark Avenue.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Loftis demanded the woman’s belongings, pistol-whipped her, stole her phone and then fled.
Later that same day, prosecutors said Loftis targeted a second woman in an even more horrifying attack.
The 38-year-old victim was brushing snow off her vehicle near Madison Avenue and West 79th Street while her 15-month-old son sat inside the car.
Prosecutors said Loftis approached the woman, threatened to kill her, demanded her belongings and ordered her to the ground at gunpoint.
Loftis then climbed into the vehicle, according to prosecutors. When the woman tried to fight back and grab her baby, Loftis fired his gun. One bullet went into the air, while another struck the woman in the face.
Prosecutors said Loftis then threw the 15-month-old boy into the snow and drove away in the woman’s vehicle.
Authorities later identified Loftis using Flock cameras, and he was arrested the following day.
At sentencing, Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor Connor Davin pointed to Loftis’ long criminal record, which included prior convictions for assault on a peace officer, drug trafficking, felonious assault and armed robbery.
“He’s got one of the longest criminal histories I’ve ever seen,” Davin said, according to Cleveland.com.
“There are prisons for a reason,” he later added.
Loftis’ public defender, Scott Hurley, told the court that his client experienced severe trauma as a child, including witnessing his father stomp on his mother’s head.
“A man abusing a woman in front of a child is one of his first and earliest memories … I think we can look at his criminal history and start to understand it,” Hurley said, according to Cleveland.com.
But prosecutors described Loftis as a repeat violent offender whose January crime spree left women and a baby terrorized.
He will now spend decades behind bars.
Demonic looking
Disgusting ngr, hope he gets killed in prison.
They should let the family stone him to death.