CLAYTON, Mo. _ Just weeks after he was freed from prison, Paul Borroni robbed a Clayton bartender last spring, then waited while she called the cops.
Life in the free world was too much to handle after spending most of his life in prison, and Borroni robbed the bartender for the sole purpose of a speedy return, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in March 2018. The convicted murderer likened himself to a character from the movie "The Shawshank Redemption."
"I couldn't keep up," Borroni said at the time. He craved the prison structure. As a free man, he said, he felt adrift.
Fast-forward to this week in a courtroom at St. Louis County Circuit Court. After a year locked up in the county's jail system, awaiting trial for the Clayton robbery, Borroni went before Judge Michael Jamison to plead guilty.
But Borroni no longer sought a return to prison. He'd had a change of heart.
After pleading guilty, Borroni, 58, chose not to say anything to the judge, but instead let a plea deal crafted by his attorney speak for him. Jamison on Monday sentenced Borroni to 15 years in prison for first-degree robbery at C.J. Muggs _ but then suspended execution of the sentence and put Borroni on five years' probation instead.
Jamison ordered various conditions for probation, including that Borroni live in Springfield, Mo., at the Victory Mission while getting job training and learning "life skills." He also has to get mental health and drug treatment.
Borroni's public defender, Jemia Steele, told a reporter Tuesday that Borroni had indeed wanted to return to prison a year ago.
"Paul was dead-set on that for a while," Steele said. "Then he realized he doesn't need to go back to prison. That he can turn his life around."
Victory Mission "will get him acclimated into society better," she said. "Paul really didn't have the right tools before. He had been in prison so long."
The St. Louis County prosecutor's office consulted with law enforcement and Borroni's family and agreed that probation was "the most just outcome under the circumstances," a prosecutor's spokeswoman said.
After the newspaper's story about Borroni's desire to be locked up again, Steele said several people contacted Borroni in jail. One reader was a St. Louis-area man who, after weekly meetings with Borroni, suggested to Steele that Borroni transition to the center in southwest Missouri. That man, in fact, was in court Monday to hear the judge's sentence and then drove Borroni to Springfield, Steele said. The county jail released Borroni about 3 p.m. Monday.
Borroni was in a classroom Tuesday and unavailable for comment, the Victory Mission said.
Borroni entered the prison system when he was 17 after he fatally stabbed Diane L. Kramer, a Bishop DuBourg High School student, because she wouldn't date him. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and began serving a 35-year sentence on Feb. 15, 1979.
Borroni was released from prison in September 2004 but returned twice more for parole violations. His new convictions were for forgery, theft and robbery. The years in prison added up. Borroni said he was twice denied parole. Once he "maxed out" his prison time, in February 2018, he walked out of prison having served 100 percent of his sentence. No parole officer would be checking on him. He was on his own.
His life beyond prison was described in the Post-Dispatch article in March 2018. The world had changed with lightning speed from the St. Louis he knew from the 1970s. "I felt out of place," he said. "I couldn't relate." He said he wanted to find a way to return to prison; he wrote his sister a goodbye email and rode MetroLink to Clayton. He had been free 26 days when, on March 6, 2018, he pretended his finger was a gun hidden in his coat and robbed a bartender at C.J. Muggs. She handed Borroni a stack of bills and a roll of quarters. He ordered her to call police.
"There was some reason to believe he just wanted to go back to jail," Judge Jamison said. "That was his whole life."
Jamison said first-degree robbery is a serious crime. He said he gave Borroni a fairly stiff sentence and attached stiff conditions for probation. Jamison said Borroni has a chance to rehabilitate.
"It's the hope that everyone has the possibility of rehabilitating," the judge said.
The conditions of his probation include not contacting his sister except by letter, not contacting the bartender he robbed, and living at the Springfield center. He has to complete a 12- to 18-month program. And Jamison also ordered him to stay away from St. Louis County unless he has permission from his probation officer.
The center in Springfield has to notify the assistant prosecutor immediately if Borroni doesn't show up.
"The ball is in Paul's court now," Borroni's lawyer said in an interview. "If he messes up, he'll have to serve 85 percent of his sentence," which translates to nearly 13 years in prison.
Mark McKnelly, restoration chaplain at Victory Mission, said the program has 35 to 40 men at any given time. He said the first three months are free to them. Then they must work in the community to help pay their way for the rest of the program.
McKnelly said the program blends spiritual, vocational, financial and other areas.
"We call it holistic restoration," he said. "We bring them off the street, from the Department of Corrections, coming out of an addiction.
"We want to deinstitutionalize him," McKnelly added. "Sometimes the men can like (the structure of prison) so much that it keeps them from developing life skills."
On Tuesday, McKnelly met Borroni at the center.
"I just passed him in the hallway," McKnelly said. "I shook hands with him."
And does McKnelly think Borroni has a good shot at succeeding?
"We'll see," McKnelly said. "He seems willing to try something new."
