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THE BEAST DESERVES FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

FOUR hundred years is not enough.

My only hope is that something awful happens in prison to Robert Williams – the unspeakable creature who tortured a Columbia grad student for kicks and giggles – before he’s able to maim, or kill, someone else.

At a time in this city when young women no longer feel they have to look over their shoulders or risk being attacked, Williams effectively ended the youth of one student. He kidnapped the young lady in her own apartment in April 2007, and repeatedly raped and subjected her to pain so unendurable, she begged him to kill her.

Luckily for her, as well as everyone else in this city, the brave woman lived. Luckily for the next lady Williams would have attacked, this victim defied the beast’s best efforts and maintained her sanity and her sight. She lived to calmly identify him in court. She put him away.

Justice Carol Berkman gave Williams 422 years to life for a raft of charges, from attempted murder, to kidnapping and sexual assault. It was the best she could do, but it’s not enough.

Williams continued to try to manipulate the courtroom yesterday, much as he manipulated his way into his victim’s home. He tried to avoid court by refusing to leave his warm bed at Rikers. His increasingly ridiculous-sounding lawyer, Arnold Levine, argued that Williams’ reluctance to show up merely proved he was insane. I don’t think so.

It took six members of an “extraction team,” done up like ninjas in shields and helmets, to haul the thing into court. He sat there, mute. He didn’t care.

Prosecutor Ann Prunty lashed out at him, saying this is no ordinary criminal but a “brutal and sadistic monster” who gets off on watching his victims suffer. Prison walls won’t calm him.

“He’s going to continue to be violent while incarcerated, we can be sure about that,” Prunty said.

As for his victim, “I’m afraid to go outside,” she said in a heartbreaking victim impact statement.

“Every man I pass on the street I view in terms of how easily he could overpower me.”

He can’t hurt you anymore.

Let’s hope he never hurts anyone else.

andrea.peyser@nypost.com