18-year-old Westchester resident Jesse Wasserman, better known as the "Boarding School Bandit" after his tenure at the tony Vermont Academy, was sentenced to 16 months in prison yesterday for his role in a string of Central Park armed robberies last summer. "I am very sorry for what happened to these innocent victims," Wasserman said, "I was not in my right mind." DNAinfo reports that the judge gave Wasserman youthful offender status, meaning that his records will be sealed after he serves his time. Wasserman's accomplice, Alex Greene, who allegedly brandished the firearm during the robberies, has yet to be sentenced.
Wasserman, who dropped out of school and whose father is a doctor that owns a store in the Diamond District, seemed grateful to the judge for his relative leniency: "I would like to thank your honor for giving me a second chance at life by giving me a youthful offender status," he said, "as his mother sobbed in the gallery nearby." However, the mother of one of Wasserman's victims, who had his "Velcro wallet containing $3 stolen, along with a seven-year-old cell phone," asked the judge to impose the maximum 25-year sentence. "As far as I'm concerned these guys are terrorists," Lynn Jawitz said, "You're not less of a terrorist because you're not the guy who held the gun."
Thankfully for Wasserman, he won't have to endure those awkward "So what did you do?" conversations in jail for 25 years ("I, uh...stole a velcro wallet and an old cellphone") but the courtroom photo from yesterday shows a very different kid than the one who was arrested.
