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Jay Rowe
Jay Rowe was sentenced to 12 years in state prison on August 11 for the kidnapping and armed robbery of a pregnant Springs woman last year.
Rowe, 48, also a Springs resident, was already in custody on August 11 because, while out on bail after pleading guilty earlier this year to the crimes, he failed to appear in court on his sentencing date of July 27. A warrant for his arrest was issued; Rowe remained at large for five days, essentially buying himself an extra weekend of freedom.
He turned himself in on August 8.
That extra weekend of freedom for Rowe cost him an additional 2½ years behind bars. New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro tacked on that extra time to the 9½ years he had promised Rowe would be his sentence in February, under the terms of a plea deal.
Ambro said that when he made that promise, it was contingent upon Rowe not getting in any additional trouble and showing up at each and every court date. He said that he had already granted Rowe three postponements on the sentencing date as a courtesy.
The judge read from the minutes from that February court session, in which he asked Rowe if he understood all the conditions he needed to fulfill to receive the promised sentence. Rowe had answered, “Yes, sir.”
“The district attorney’s recommendation for a sentence of 12 years was entirely reasonable,” Ambro continued. “Since you took full responsibility for it originally, I gave you a lesser sentence.”
“You put a gun to a woman who was pregnant, then forcibly took the money,” Ambro said before pronouncing the sentence on August 11.
Rowe admitted to the details of the crime when he pleaded guilty in February.
Rowe surprised the woman, who was seated in her car in the Springs School parking lot on March 8, 2021. He pointed a gun at her belly and began shouting at her. He forced her to drive to a secluded nearby dead-end street, where he threatened her, then robbed her, of about $8,000 before fleeing.
Springs School was put on lockdown following the woman’s abduction, which took place just before school was to let out.
A clearly unhappy Ambro allowed Rowe to address the court before sentencing. Rowe used that time to explain why he missed his sentencing date.
“I just lost it, sir,” Rowe said. “I just couldn’t face the fact that I would be away from my children for so long.” He said that he was suicidal, and that it was his fiancée who talked him into surrendering.
He said he has four children, two from an earlier marriage, and two with his fiancée, ages 9 and 2.
“She told me to own up to it,” he said. “And that she would be there, and would be there when I get out.”
As he addressed the court, he continually looked back over his shoulder. He was looking for his fiancée, he could be heard later telling Astarita. “She told me she would be here,” he said to Astarita. Court officers repeatedly had to tell Rowe to face the judge.
Unknown to Rowe and Astarita, the fiancée had just arrived in the building and was waiting in the corridor outside the courtroom, unaware that sentencing had begun.
She was overheard telling Astarita afterward that her vehicle had broken down. The attorney sat down and comforted the crying woman for an extended period of time.
Rowe told the judge that his fiancée was the one who borrowed the $60,000 that secured his release on bail last May, after he had spent two months in the Suffolk County jail following his arrest late March, 2021.
After sentencing, as he was leaving the courthouse, Astarita said that he believes the bail money will be returned to the fiancée.
As unhappy as Ambro was about Rowe’s self-created delay of sentencing, the judge was perhaps even more disturbed that Rowe failed to address the crimes he committed last year, in his statement to the court.
“You talk about yourself. I asked you to make a statement about the crime. The crime itself was horrific,” Ambro said, before sentencing Rowe to 12 years on each of the two violent felony counts, kidnapping and armed robbery, as well as three years on a grand larceny charge, with the three sentences to be served concurrently, followed by five years of supervised release.
Because of the violent felonies involved, Rowe will be required, under state law, to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence.
The two months he spent in county jail will count toward his overall sentence, meaning he will first become eligible for parole in spring 2032.
He is currently being held in the Suffolk County Jail in Yaphank. He will be transferred to a state-run prison downstate over the next couple of weeks, where he will be processed and then permanently assigned to a penitentiary in upstate New York.
Given the violent nature of his crimes, he is likely to be housed in a maximum-security prison.
Sentencing completed, officers began leading Rowe away.
“Good luck, Mr. Rowe,” Ambro said.
