Accomplices sentenced to prison in home invasions

The accomplices in two daring home invasions last year were sentenced to lengthy prison terms Thursday, with the longer time going against the one who tried to fight her charges at trial.

Sasha Gaskins will spend the next 18 years in the Department of Corrections, while co-defendant Breanna Bruster was sentenced to 10 years.

Bruster's shorter term came after she opted to cooperate with authorities in a case in which three men, including two former Citadel football players, hatched the invasion plots.

Gaskins fought the charges but suffered the consequences. She was convicted after a week-long trial after a jury rejected her claim that she had been coerced to take part in the violence. Prosecutors said she simply failed to take responsibility for her actions.

The cases centered on Gaskins' role to fake car trouble in order to get access into two residences, one on James Island, where a former Citadel cadet lived, and the other in West Ashley, where a former Citadel football coach lived.

Once Gaskins got inside, she paved the way for three men to break in and bind, rob and terrorize the residents.

One of the victims of the February 2010 crime spree, former cadet Herbert Butler III of James Island, said Gaskins' involvement was deep and immediate.

"Sasha was the bait, an angel in

distress," he said at the sentencing. "She's not a little girl. She's old enough to make decisions."

A woman who was at the home and was sexually assaulted by one of the intruder males also told Circuit Judge Deadra Jefferson that Gaskins knew what she was doing from the very start.

"She looked me in the eyes and got me to trust her for that first couple of seconds," the woman said.

Former Citadel coach Josh Harpe also painted Gaskins as calculating in the attack on his West Ashley apartment. "Miss Gaskins sat on that stand, stone cold, and refused to show any remorse," he said of her actions during her trial.

Gaskins, 19, of Clinton, a former College of Charleston student, was convicted of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of first-degree burglary.

Bruster, 19, of Greenville, also a former College of Charleston student, pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery.

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said one of the more heinous parts of the crime was the levity displayed by all the participants, and the length of time the group used to terrorize victims at both sites.

The three male participants -- former Citadel quarterback Miguel Starks, 20; former Citadel linebacker Reggie Rice, 23; and Stephen Francois, 21, who had been at the College of Charleston and was Gaskins' boyfriend -- each received 30 years in prison for their roles during their sentencings last week.

During Thursday's sentencing, both women apologized to the victims and their families. Gaskins asked that all involved "find it in your heart to forgive me."

Jefferson said the women's acts stood out for two reasons, first for the abhorrence of the crimes, and second that both squandered "so much, and so many opportunities."