On the bright side, Joshua Allen Robey is an award winner.
On the dark side, the award is for posing for our Ugliest Police Mugshot of the Week.
The drifter was in court Thursday for a pre-trial hearing related to allegations he tried to kill his 2-month-old son by repeatedly shaking and punching
the baby and swinging him by the neck in a noose-like blanket.
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Robey's girlfriend and mother of his child suspected her beau was a cheater. So, she hid a camera in the Anaheim home she lives in with her mother. Authorities say the secret video does not show infidelity when Robey came over to babysit his boy. They say it shows him wrapping a blanket around the
infant's neck,
picking the baby up by lifting the ends of the blanket like a noose, and
swinging the child around for more than a minute.
The Orange
County District Attorney's office (OCDA) also accuses Robey of punching the 2-month-old several
times in the chest with closed fists, repeatedly slapping the child and grabbing him by the
throat with both hands, lifting him in the air, and violently shaking
him. At one point, as the baby cried, Robey allegedly covered the child's mouth with a
hand, grabbed him by the neck with the other and shook him
in the air. Robey is accused of attempting to suffocate his pride and joy
with both the blanket and his hands.
The baby was later hospitalized as a result of the abuse, the OCDA says.
Robey has been charged with one felony count each of
attempted murder, torture, and child abuse with a sentencing enhancement
for causing great bodily injury to a child under 5 years old. He has another pre-trial hearing scheduled for Jan. 13.
Ugly.
Previous coverage:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.