Tony Robinson, a homeless man who fatally stabbed visiting graduate student Anat Kimchi in 2021 as she walked in the Loop, was sentenced Tuesday to the maximum allowed — 60 years in prison.
Cook County Circuit Judge John F. Lyke Jr. said the murder was a “heinous, senseless and brutal crime” that took the life of a gifted criminal justice researcher “whose vision was to improve the very system that we are a part of.”
The sentencing capped a bizarre hearing Tuesday morning that featured emotional testimony from family members, friends and academic colleagues, as well as meandering rants from Robinson, who fired his public defenders and opted to represent himself.
The hearing also featured gripping testimony from a downstate woman who identified Robinson as the man who bashed her over the head with a sock full of rocks, breaking her nose and requiring stitches and staples for her head injuries, just six days before the attack on Kimchi.
A jury in May convicted Robinson, 46, of murdering Kimchi, 31, a University of Maryland doctoral student who was visiting a friend in Chicago. The unprovoked attack happened June 19, 2021, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, as Kimchi looked for a place to sit and read a book.
As Kimchi walked in the 400 block of South Wacker Drive, just south of the Willis Tower, Robinson sneaked up behind her and stabbed her three times in the neck and back.
More than five years after her daughter’s murder, Chava Kimchi-Sarfaty finally got to make her victim impact statement. She talked about how Anat called her nearly every morning as she walked her dog.
“I miss this morning call so much, you can’t imagine how much,” she said. “It used to be one of the things I most looked forward to when I woke up. I can’t say I even really wake up these days because my nights are spent thinking about Anat’s last minutes, and ‘what if’ questions that would never be answered.”
She added: “Every wedding I attend, I think of how I will never be able to walk Anat down the aisle. Every new child that is born, I think I will never be able to hold her child in my arms.”
Kimchi’s father, Avraham Kimchi, read a poem about his daughter.
“Anat always teased me that she will help me find things to do as I grow old. And she kept her promise — all our family, together with her colleagues, are committed to continue Anat’s legacy and find ways to improve our justice system,” he said.
Anat Kimchi’s brothers Itamar and Ofer also spoke. Ofer, his voice breaking, began by explaining his sorrow that she’ll never meet her nephew, his son.
“When Anat was murdered, I lost the person I was. I used to believe in God. How can I express that loss?” he said.
“I rarely feel safe anymore. When I’m in public, even when I’m at home, I think about how I, or the people I love, can die at any moment. I know how important it is for my son to grow up feeling safe and secure, but I don’t know how to help him feel safe when I know that behind those trees, there might be a man with a knife and the intent to murder.”
Robinson, wearing a tan jail uniform, leaned back in a chair at the defense table, a sheriff’s officer close by. Occasionally, he sneezed or coughed.
Much of the testimony focused on the irony that Kimchi’s research aimed to uncover disparities in the criminal justice system and make it better.
By all accounts a brilliant yet humble student, she had earned two undergraduate degrees and a master’s from the University of Maryland. Two weeks after her death, she was posthumously awarded her doctorate.
Much of Kimchi’s data-driven research focused on how offenders’ race and ethnicity were predictive of their probation conditions. She found Black probationers were more likely to get tougher conditions, leading to a higher likelihood of violations.
Lyke said her supporters gave “some of the more powerful victim impact statements I’ve ever heard, in over 30 years in the criminal justice system.”
The attack was one of several shocking cases examined in a Chicago Sun-Times investigation last year into violent attacks downtown.
Robinson lived in a tent on Lower Wacker Drive. According to police and court records, he had a history of arrests and bizarre behavior, including telling detectives that he believed people were tracking him with their cellphones.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Nicole Ferguson, 56, of Mattoon, testified that on the morning of June 13, 2021, she was leaving a downtown hotel to get coffee when Robinson came out of an alley and said, “Are you following me, b—h?”
She said she replied “no” and looked back at her phone, then glimpsed a long, dark-colored object out of the corner of her eye.
“It hit me in the head very hard. Before I could even turn around, I was hit again,” she testified.
Her money and phone fell to the ground, and she was struck a third time. She said Robinson grabbed her belongings, and she was taken to a hospital.
Police later recovered a black sock filled with rocks in Robinson’s tent.
Mental illness never came up at the hearing.
Robinson simply claimed he didn’t do it.
At the trial, prosecutors did not have video of the murder, but they showed numerous clips of Robinson sneaking up on Kimchi, running from the scene with a knife, throwing an object into the river and changing his shirt. An eyewitness — another homeless man who called 911 — testified that he later confronted Robinson at his tent and that Robinson menaced him with a knife.
Robinson said Tuesday that “the only victim that I know about right here is me.”
“This is a bunch of theatrics. I don’t know who these people are,” Robinson said, launching into a rambling explanation that referenced Jews and Muslims, Shakespeare’s writings and President Donald Trump and the midterm elections.
“I speak a lot of truths. Maybe that’s why they want me out of the way,” Robinson said.
As sheriff’s deputies led him away, he said, “You’ll see me again. Get ready.”
Prosecutor Anna Sedelmaier said Robinson displayed an “absolutely disgusting lack of remorse.”
“The whole world is darker and more awful for the death of Anat Kimchi,” she said. “On a beautiful day, he stole her life.”
Contributing: Frank Main