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Penn Professor Pleads to Manslaughter

Monday, November 26, 2007

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - November 26, 2007 -- A former Ivy League professor has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing his wife as she wrapped Christmas presents last year.

Rafael Robb, once a tenured economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faces a likely prison sentence of 4½ to seven years for bludgeoning his wife, Ellen, on Dec. 22. She was planning to move out the next month and seek a divorce after a rocky 16-year marriage.

Robb, 57, testified Monday that he argued with his wife about a trip she and their daughter were taking over the holiday break. He did not want the 12-year-old to miss any school.

"We started a discussion about that. The discussion was tense," Robb said. "We were both anxious about it. We both got angry. At one point, Ellen pushed me. ... I just lost it."

Robb said he picked up the chin-up bar, which was laying nearby, and repeatedly struck his wife with it.

He later threw the weapon in a trash bin in Philadelphia and tried to make the their Upper Merion Township home look like it had been burglarized. Detectives were suspicious from the start, though, because the scene was poorly staged and nothing was missing.

"I have never seen a burglar beat somebody to death and then not steal anything," Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor said Monday.

Robb's trial had been scheduled to start Monday. He could have faced a life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder, but Castor felt there were no guarantees given the circumstantial evidence.

The ex-professor pleaded guilty to one count of voluntary manslaughter, which is defined as an intentional, unlawful killing, with provocation, in the heat of passion.

"It's a classic heat-of-passion killing," Castor said.

Ellen Robb's brothers, Art Gregory of Haddonfield, N.J., and Gary Gregory of Boston, said their sister suffered verbal abuse throughout the marriage that eroded her self-esteem.

The couple stayed together because of their daughter, Olivia.

Yet the decision led to a tragic end, and the girl has now effectively lost both parents, the brothers said.

The family is starting a foundation in memory of Ellen Robb, a stay-at-home mother remembered for her school volunteer work. They said they believe Robb was being genuine when he expressed remorse in court Monday.

"I hope it can mark the start of the healing process," said Art Gregory, who is raising Olivia, now 13.

Robb feared he would see less of his daughter in a divorce, both sides agreed.

Like his wife, he adored the girl and had driven her to school the day of the slaying. He returned home and was getting ready to go to his office at Penn to work on grades when the argument erupted, Robb said.

Ellen Robb, 49, was found dead in the kitchen, near the partially wrapped presents.

Rafael Robb apologized to his daughter, who was not in court, and said he was "very remorseful."

"I know she liked her mother. ... And now she doesn't have a mother," he said, stifling tears.

He talked his daughter by phone over the weekend and admitted that he was responsible for her mother's death. They have not seen each other since he was arrested in January.

Robb, who has been held without bail, hopes to get out of prison in time to again care for his daughter, defense lawyers Frank DeSimone and Jules Epstein said.

"It was a very difficult case. We spent hours agonizing over it," DeSimone said.

Meanwhile, Robb is battling thyroid cancer that will require additional surgery, he said.

Robb, a native of Israel, is an expert in game theory, a complex melding of psychology, human behavior and economics - all aimed at determining what one's adversary will do next. With that background, police said, Robb may have thought he could outsmart them.

But his lawyers persuaded him in recent days to take the plea offer.

Ellen Robb was expecting to get about $4,000 a month in support in a divorce, based on her estimate that his salary was about $200,000, according to evidence at a February pretrial hearing.

Sentencing will likely take place in a few months. Guidelines call for a prison term of 4½ to seven years, but Castor said the statute allows anything from probation to 10 to 20 years.

As a naturalized U.S. citizen, Robb will not face deportation, his lawyers said.

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