A man who met a woman at a bar, then sexually assaulted and tried to smother her with a pillow during a series of home invasions at her Lincoln Park apartment, has been sentenced to prison following a jury trial.
Derek Larbie, 20, is one of the many persons Cook County judges have released on electronic monitoring (EM) while facing charges of attempted murder. He will receive almost 18 months credit toward his sentence for time spent on EM, even though CPD records show he was arrested twice while on the program, including once for assault.
In July 2017, a 22-year-old DePaul University student who prosecutors said was heavily intoxicated met Larbie outside a bar and then accompanied him to a nightclub where Larbie groped her on the dancefloor, prosecutors said during an initial bond hearing.
The woman threw up as her male roommate drove her home with Larbie and one of Larbie’s friends in the car. After Larbie and the roommate carried the woman to her apartment on the 2200 block of North Racine, the roommate gave Larbie and his friend a ride to a nearby Red Line station.
Police later determined that Larbie and his friend didn’t board a train. Instead, they took an Uber back to the 2200 block of North Racine.
Larbie managed to get inside the apartment, and he was lying in the woman’s bed when she woke up the next morning, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said he sexually assaulted her, too. She and her roommate removed him from the apartment.
The following day, Larbie entered the apartment again. This time he brought a roll of duct tape and tried to smother the woman with a pillow, according to prosecutors and CPD records. Again, the roommate chased Larbie from the apartment.
Prosecutors said the attack left visible marks on the woman’s face, throat, and chest.
Five days later, a surveillance camera that was installed over the woman’s back door following the second attack captured video of Larbie and a masked man walking up her apartment building’s rear staircase, prosecutors said. Larbie allegedly looked directly at the newly-installed camera, then left with the other man.
Investigators identified Larbie as a prime suspect because he put his phone number in the victim’s phone on the first night they met, prosecutors said.
Authorities eventually arrested him in Pennsylvania and extradited him to Chicago in December 2017.
He was charged with attempted murder, multiple counts of Class X home invasion, Class X criminal sexual assault causing bodily harm, aggravated battery by strangulation, and more. Judge Michael Clancy initially ordered him held without bail.
But another judge, records that would identify which one were not immediately available, later allowed Larbie to go home on electronic monitoring.
Larbie took his case to a jury trial, and the panel convicted him of two counts of home invasion causing injury, aggravated criminal sexual assault causing bodily harm, an attempted home invasion causing injury, court records show. The jury found him not guilty of attempted murder.
Judge Timothy Joyce sentenced Larbie to 15 years for sexual assault, six years for the first home invasion, 15 years for the second home invasion, and four years for the attempted home invasion. Larbie will receive 1,458 days credit for time spent in custody before trial. He earned about one-third of the time on EM, records show.
Larbie arrived at the Stateville Correctional Center on Thursday. His parole date has not been set.
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