Robert McCallion is facing up to 25 years in state prison after pleading guilty earlier this month to over a dozen felony charges, including attempted murder and attempted murder as a hate crime after he stabbed a Black teenager visiting her family last March.
McCallion, who is white, admitted to violently stabbing a 17-year-old girl at an apartment complex where he lived at the time, court documents revealed. The incident took place on Friday, March 13, 2020, at the Avalon apartments on North Highland Avenue in Ossining in Westchester County, New York.
Police arrived at the apartment complex to find the victim, whose name has not yet been made public bleeding from stab wounds to the face and back.
Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah said the man used racial slurs while stabbing the victim, who was a stranger to him. “This was a brutal, despicable and cowardly attack by Robert McCallion on an innocent young woman because of the color of her skin,” he said.
“Hate crimes such as this not only traumatize the victim, but the community as well, and will be prosecuted aggressively by this Office,” DA Roach added. McCallion was found nearby in the complex’s parking lot covered in the victim’s blood. The knife he used during the crime was also found at the scene.
Furthermore, following his arrest, McCallion attacked a nurse while in custody at Westchester County Jail on March 15, 2020. McCallion was charged with causing “physical injury to [a] registered nurse” in an effort intended “to prevent [the] registered nurse from performing a lawful duty,” the court document stated.
During a search of his residence, where he had been living with his father, investigators found more weapons, including two loaded weapons in his bedroom, a loaded 9mm Keltec Luger-style semi-automatic and a Bushmaster Carbon 15 Armalite-style rifle.
Ossining Police Chief Kevin Sylvester told CBS2 last year, “We love this community and what it stands for, and one of the big things we try to share with people is that hatred is not welcome here.” But, he noted, “The mental and physical scarring that lasts after a violent crime, that never goes away.”
McCallion’s other charges include two counts of first-degree assault, two counts of assault as a hate crime, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, and two counts of second-degree assault.
He is due for sentencing on Nov. 16 before Judge Barry Warhit in Westchester County Court. McCallion faces anywhere from eight to 25 years in prison.
