A Chicago man was charged Friday with sexually assaulting his girlfriend’s 10-year-old daughter while he was on electronic monitoring for a pending Class X felony armed habitual criminal charge.
Prosecutors said the girl told investigators the man sexually assaulted her a number of times when she was left alone with him at the home where he was required to stay on house arrest. CWBChicago is not identifying the man by name to protect the child’s identity.
“If these allegations are true, it’s just despicable,” Cook County Judge John Lyke said after hearing the state’s presentation during a bond court hearing Friday.
The case is the latest example of persons accused of committing high-level felonies in Chicago while on affordable bail for other serious felony allegations.
In late 2019, police executed a narcotics search warrant at the home where the man, his girlfriend, and the girl lived. The man, now 50-years-old, was the target of the warrant.
Police allegedly found a loaded handgun under the mattress in his bedroom, three rounds of ammunition on his nightstand, and between 15 and 200 ecstasy pills. He has two prior convictions for illegal gun possession.
Prosecutors charged him with Class X armed habitual criminal and manufacture-delivery of ecstasy. He was allowed to go home on electronic monitoring by posting $1,000, according to court records.
In July, the girl’s mother allegedly walked into the man’s room and saw him fondling her daughter. She confronted him, and he left the house, Assistant State’s Attorney Jim Murphy said Friday. Then, she called police.
“He leaves the house while on house arrest after being caught,” Judge Lyke later recalled.
While CPD bodyworn cameras were rolling, the mother and the girl separately described exactly what happened, Murphy said. The child allegedly said the abuse was on-going and happened when she was left alone with the man at home or when everyone else was asleep.
At a hospital, the girl gave a detailed account of what happened before her mother discovered the assault in progress, according to Murphy. Hospital staff also collected a sexual assault evidence kit.
The next day, Murphy said, the 10-year-old provided even more details to her adult sister.
But, on August 13, the girl would not make any disclosures during a forensic interview. According to Murphy, her mother also retracted her own statements to police and refused to cooperate with investigators.
“The mother has a change of heart and doesn’t want to cooperate any further, and the little girl doesn’t make any disclosures. I wonder why?” Lyke said while acknowledging that the man enjoys the presumption of innocence in court.
A few weeks after the girl and her mom stopped cooperating, the man allegedly told police that he was in the room with the girl when her mother walked in, but he denied all other allegations.
Police, armed with a search warrant, collected a DNA sample from him the next day. Last Saturday, the Illinois State Police reported that male DNA on a vaginal swab taken from the girl at the hospital after the alleged assault matched the man’s DNA, Murphy said. Police arrested the man this week.
Lyke ordered him held without bail on the new charge of predatory criminal sexual assault and held without bail for violating the terms of release in his pending armed habitual criminal case.
CWBChicago has identified three dozen cases of people who are charged with committing high-level violent crimes in 2020 while on bail for other serious allegations. Of those, 34 defendants are charged with committing murder, attempted murder, or shooting someone while on bail. Two, including the man charged Friday, are accused of sexually assaulting children.
