Pair charged with assault on man jailed

Victim hurt by hammer, plunger

Friday, Dec. 14, 2007

Grand jurors also charged Joseph Louis Herbert, 51, of Clements and Robin Alana Thompson, 39, of Tall Timbers with second-degree assault in the alleged Jan. 19 attack on 20-year-old Jason Lawrence Yeattes outside Herbert’s residence.

St. Mary’s Deputy State’s Attorney Theodore Weiner asked last week at a court hearing that Herbert be denied pretrial release, noting the suspect’s past drug and theft convictions dating back to a felony offense in 1980.

‘‘He’s lived outside of the law his whole life,” Weiner said.

Herbert told a judge that he has been living with his mother and that he has a medical disability, specifically mental problems from drugs.

Yeattes went to Herbert’s home three times on Jan. 19 to buy crack cocaine, court papers allege, before Yeattes forced his way inside and grabbed about $250 and some crack cocaine off a plate.

Herbert began hitting Yeattes in the head with a hammer in a struggle that continued until Yeattes collapsed on a back porch, where Thompson allegedly shoved the plunger’s handle into Yeattes’ rectum, according to the court papers filed by detective A.J. Malaspina of the Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

Yeattes left the residence, court papers state, but later was flown to the Washington Hospital Center, where he underwent several surgeries before his release about six weeks later.

Thompson was extradited from Maine to Maryland after she was arrested on original district court charging papers filed in the case.

‘‘I didn’t know about the charge,” Thompson said last week during a court hearing, adding that she also has a drug problem. ‘‘That’s why I moved to Maine,” she said.

Circuit Judge Karen H. Abrams ordered that Thompson also be denied pretrial release.

Assistant State’s Attorney Kevin McDevitt said this week that a burglary charge filed last spring against Yeattes from the incident was dismissed.

E-mail John Wharton at jwharton@somdnews.com.