MONROE — The daughter and the ex-wife of a Belleville man came to his defense as he was sentenced Dec. 3 in Green County Circuit Court for brutally beating a woman and stealing to support a lifelong crack cocaine addiction.
Patrick H. Roper, 44, was sentenced to five years in prison and five years on extended supervision for felony convictions of false imprisonment and intimidation of a victim. Numerous related domestic abuse charges including kidnapping and stalking were dismissed but “read in,” meaning the judge could consider them at sentencing.
He was also sentenced to a concurrent three years in prison and three years on extended supervision for a felony conviction of burglary related a theft of checks, family heirlooms and around $4,500 in gold jewelry from a rural Belleville home in November 2018.
Roper faces additional prison time in three pending felony cases in Dane and Sauk counties alleging forgery and other money-related offenses as recent as June.
In a letter filed with the court, his daughter, Lenora, acknowledged Roper’s “many problems over the years” but asked the judge to consider another side of him.
“He has taught me how to bow hunt, fish, camp, drive a car, go to church, respect family, focus in school, don’t let people walk on you, make me help around the house when I don’t want to, go to work and have a job also when I don’t always want to,” she wrote.
“Probably the most important thing he has taught me and told me: Don’t do drugs, don’t steal, don’t make the mistakes I have.”
“I will always love him no matter what,” she continued, “but just want you to know he is capable of good in life and can be capable of making good choices in the future. I need my dad to be a great dad, a great grandfather someday, and he needs me too.”
Roper’s ex-wife and Lenora’s mother, Julie, also wrote a letter to the judge.
“I truly believe Pat knows that he has wronged many people and that he needs to be punished,” she wrote, “but what I feel needs to be considered is he is person with skills to offer ... Please consider sentencing him in a way that gives him an opportunity to grow and learn during his punishment.”
Even though their marriage ended, she wrote that she cares about him and he is “still a human with feelings, a heart and a brain.”
Neither the burglary victim nor the beating victim, an ex-girlfriend of Roper’s, attended the sentencing. Their victim impact statements were not publicly filed.
According to the criminal complaint, Roper followed the ex-girlfriend and waited for her outside a pet food store in New Glarus on Aug. 22. When she came out, he told her “we need to have a talk,” then began beating her with a fist and pushed her into the passenger seat of the truck.
She later told police she went into a fetal position as Roper continued striking her and called her “every filthy name in the book.”
She estimated he punched her over 50 times, including at least 10 times in the head. He then grabbed her and carried her back to his truck as she screamed for help. She said he told her he “would get some sex out of her first, off in the woods,” then kill her. She believed him.
As he started driving, she began bleeding from her face, causing “a large mess” of blood on the passenger seat. Eventually he stopped driving in what she believed to be Donald County Park near Mount Vernon.
She told police the beating was the worst pain she had ever experienced in her life. An investigating officer noted serious injuries including a deep bruise in the shape of a shoe where she said Roper had kicked her and a series of marks on her back where he had stabbed her with his crack pipe.
She said Roper had a history of physical violence against her, including breaking into her house and breaking one of her ribs.
A search of Roper’s vehicle turned up a “white rock substance” that tested positive for cocaine, along with a Chore Boy scouring pad with pieces torn off. A piece of scouring pad is commonly used as a filter in a crack pipe.
Assistant State Public Defender Guy Taylor said his client “has been a crack cocaine addict for his entire adult life” and is “completely a victim of cocaine.”
“None of this would have happened without his drug addiction. None of this whatsoever,” Taylor said at the sentencing, according to a transcript.
District Attorney Craig Nolen also blamed drug addiction as the “the precipitating cause” and said Roper “has also been involved in relatively low-level burglaries to support his drug habit.”
Taylor advocated for drug treatment for Roper, though he said he only had “a feather of hope” in the Department of Corrections’ ability to provide it.
“It’s a sad case for me because Patrick is a particularly intelligent and decent human being ... I have seldom had a client in my career who is as remorseful as he is, and I truly believe that he is receptive to treatment,” Taylor said.
The letter from Roper’s daughter “is instructive of how he lived his life prior to this despite the addiction.”
When given an opportunity to speak at his sentencing, Roper also talked about addiction.
“I’m a good father. I’m a hard worker. But this drug has wrecked my life. It has really put a loop in everything I was taught,” he said.
“I deserve to be punished because I don’t deny any of the stuff that I did. I didn’t do it as revenge. I did it for money to support my habit. ... I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I wish the people I did it to, I could apologize to them.”
Taylor and Nolen jointly recommended a sentence, and Judge Thomas Vale accepted it as reasonable “under the circumstances.”
Vale called the domestic abuse case appalling, violent and vicious.
“I’m not surprised that the victim has indicated she is essentially being haunted by that,” Vale said. However, the support of Roper’s daughter for her father “does speak volumes to the court.”
Roper is being held at the state prison in Waupun. Court records show his criminal record goes back to 1994, when he was convicted of battery. Over the years he’s been convicted of burglary, theft, unemployment compensation fraud, receiving stolen property, theft by contractor and forgery.