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DA opposes burglar’s house arrest request

Armed with a knife, Dion Rosenberger broke into a Hilltown family’s home in 1997 and was thwarted by a 19-year-old with a gun. Prosecutors asked a judge to deny the burglar’s request to serve the rest of his sentence at home.
By LAURIE MASON
Courier Times
E-mail – [email protected]

A Hilltown man who broke into a neighbor’s house in 1997 and was shot by the homeowner’s teen-age son asked a Bucks County judge yesterday to allow him to serve the remainder of his jail term under house arrest. Dion Rosenberger, 36, is serving a two- to five-year sentence for breaking into the South Perkasie Road home of Robert Brobst on June 28,
1997. Armed with a knife, the burglar crept into the kitchen of the house about 4 a.m. while Brobst and his wife were away on vacation. The couple’s children, Jeffery, 19, and Julie, 14, were asleep upstairs. Awakened by noises, the siblings tried to call 911 from an upstairs phone, but were unable to get a dial tone because Rosenberger had taken a phone off its hook.
Jeffery Brobst grabbed a hunting rifle from underneath his bed and shot Rosenberger once in the abdomen as he ascended the stairs toward him. He forced the wounded burglar into a chair while his sister called police. When officers arrived, they initially thought Jeffery Brobst was the intruder and ordered him out of the house with his hands up, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Weintraub.
“It was a bizarre crime, but the police sorted it out. Those kids showed incredible courage that night,” Weintraub said. Rosenberger, who lived on Hilltown Road directly behind the Brobst home at the time of the crime, told police that he was high on cocaine and broke into the house to escape someone following him. At his trial, Rosenberger’s attorney argued that Rosenberger was trying to get away from an assailant and had, in fact, called 911 from inside the Brobst home. But the jury didn’t buy it and convicted Rosenberger on all counts. Rosenberger was eligible for parole in July 1999 but was denied because he had not completed rehabilitation programs at Bucks County prison, including drug and alcohol awareness, anger management and decision-making.
Bucks County Senior Judge Ward Clark approved a work-release program for the burglar last year after Rosenberger said he secured a job doing phone solicitation work for the Bucks County Police Association. Contacted by the Courier Times after that hearing, however, association President Mel Shapiro denied Rosenberger was offered a job. Rosenberger did not comply with the terms of work release, Weintraub said yesterday, and was taken out of the program that allows prisoners to leave the jail during work hours and return after their shifts. In court yesterday in Doylestown, Weintraub argued that Rosenberger should not be allowed to serve house arrest, especially since his house is so near the victims’. He also gave Clark letters from the Brobst family opposing Rosenberger’s release.
“To this day, he has not offered an explanation for his behavior,” Weintraub said. “Without an explanation, how can this family be assured that he won’t do the same thing again?”
Clark took Rosenberger’s request under advisement and said he will rule on it on a later date.
Wednesday, March 21, 2001