HARTFORD, Conn. _ A Hartford man who stole a car with a sleeping 11-year-old boy inside, then was beaten by that boy before abandoning the car, pleaded guilty last week to first-degree larceny and risk of injury to a minor.
Edward Asberry, 43, faces eight years in prison followed by four years of special parole when he is sentenced on Tuesday.
The boy's father had left the car running in the McDonald's parking lot on Albany Avenue on June 2 while he stepped into the restaurant, police said. Inside, the 11-year-old was asleep.
Asberry got into the 2018 Kia Sedona and drove off, police said. When the boy woke up and realized it wasn't his father who was driving, he attacked Asberry.
The boy hit Asberry several times, causing Asberry to pull over and abandon the car, prosecutor Vicki Melchicorre told Hartford Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini.
Hartford police officers took Asberry into custody at Garden and Mather streets. The boy was not injured.
Asberry, of Baltimore Street in Hartford, told police he did not realize the boy was in the car.
