Denise Rotheimer - Candidate for Lake County Board District 17

Press Conference Text, News Sun September 25 2008

On November 23, 1992, the Crime Victim’s Rights Act (CVRA) was added to the Illinois Constitution. However, a provision that guarantees the protection of these rights does not exist. Instead, the Scope of the Rights of Crime Victims and Witnesses Act, provides a provision that denies crime victims the right to impose civil liability upon any law enforcement officer or State’s Attorney for any act of omission or commission in rendering crime victim’s assistance or otherwise enforcing this Act.

As a witness of a violent crime, I did not receive a copy of my rights under the CVRA. At the sentencing hearing in February 2003, the defense attorney approached me in absence of the Assistant State’s Attorney (ASA) and disclosed the prosecution’s decision to accept a plea for the minimum sentence of Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child (PCSAC).

“The Illinois legislature made PCSAC an individual crime in 1995. PCSAC is a Class X Felony. The offense of PCSAC occurs if a defendant who is 17 years old or older sexually penetrates a victim who is under the age of 13 years old when the act occurs. If the defendant causes great bodily harm, which results in permanent or life-threatening injuries, or the accused delivered a controlled substance to the victim, a more serious sentence will be imposed.” After my encounter with the defense attorney, I searched the court building to find the ASA. I finally located her on the second floor and questioned why she agreed to accept a plea for the minimum sentence of six years. She replied, “You’re not a lawyer, I don’t need to explain the law to you.”

“I don’t have to be a lawyer,” I said, “I’m the mother!” Afterwards, I returned to the courtroom. Desperate to oppose the prosecution, I asked the bailiff if he could let the judge know that I disagreed with the minimum sentence. The judge called the State’s case against the defendant, and the ASA made her opening statement. Then the bailiff approached the judge and relayed my previous message. The judge asked if I agreed with the sentence and motioned me to approach the bench. “No. There was bodily harm. He sucked on her nipples and he got her up against the wall and he put himself inside of her. That’s bodily harm. She’s 11. She’s a virgin child. It was manipulated,” I said.

The ASA interjected, “I’ve explained that that’s not the statutory definition of bodily harm, Judge.”

“I note for the purposes of the factual basis we are looking at a penis in the mouth, but give me a background. He also sexually penetrated her vaginally?” asked the Judge.

“Yes,” I replied.

“No. No, Judge. He attempted to but there was--,” the ASA disagreed.

“Your Honor, I was told by the detectives that according to the law that as long as he touches her with his penis in her vagina, it went into the inside of the tip, that is what constitutes penetration.”
“Why the minimum,” asked the Judge.
“That’s what I say. That’s what I say.” I replied.
After my experience with the criminal justice system, I met with a private attorney to file a lawsuit against the ASA. On February 25, 2003, the attorney faxed a copy of the Rights of Crime Victims and Witnesses Act to my attention at work. Then he contacted me on the telephone and explained how the Scope of the Act prevented me from filing a suit against the ASA. As upset as I still was with the injustice I experienced at the sentencing hearing, I could not allow the state to victimize other parents. Therefore, I contacted my State Representative and my quest to amend the CVRA began.

As a parent of a child rape victim, I will not give up on my mission to remove Lake County State’s Attorney, Mike Waller from office.

“In the criminal justice system, the prosecutor’s role is to represent the state and to prosecute the case on behalf of the people of Illinois. The prosecutor does not represent the victim individually.” As crime victims we trust in the prosecutor to serve justice and sentence our offenders to prison with the maximum penalties that the law allows. However, this agenda could create a conflict of interest between crime victims and the SAO. The state has the authority to obtain convictions by reducing charges and requesting minimum sentences if the defendants agree to plead guilty. In most child sex cases in Lake County, the SAO justifies its decision to plead for the minimum sentence by requiring the defendant to register on the sex offender registry.

Nationwide, “sixty-one percent of rapes are not reported to the police and those rapists of course, never serve a day in prison. If rape is reported to police, there is a 50.8% chance that an arrest will be made. If an arrest is made, there is an 80% chance of prosecution. If there is a prosecution, there is a 58% chance of a felony conviction. If there is a felony conviction, there is a 69% chance the convict will spend time in jail. So, even in the 39% of attacks that are reported to police, there is only a 16.3% chance the rapist will end up in prison. Factoring in unreported rapes, about 6% of rapists—1 out of 16—will ever spend a day in jail. 15 out of 16 walk free.”

“The majority of the victims of sex offenders are children. According to the Justice Department, 67% of the victims of sexual assault are less than 18, 1/3 are less than 12. Sex offenders represent the highest risk of repeat offense.” “Statewide, there are more than 22,000 registered sex offenders. Of the 1,794 who are non-compliant, roughly 20 percent are classified as sexual predators, sexually dangerous or sexually violent, or are convicted murderers of children.”

“Pedophiles possess no tidy criminal profile. They come from all walks of life. Some married, some single; some professional, some blue-collar; some young, some old. Some prefer boys, and some prefer girls. Some are attracted to young children, some to older children. In short, pedophilia, or sexual attraction to children by an adult is sickness that does not discriminate by race, class, or age. It knows no bounds, it afflicts people in every segment of society. Pedophiles are master manipulators of children who prey on a child’s sexual ignorance and curiosity. Pedophiles also receive monthly magazines and newsletters that include seduction techniques and advice on avoiding detection and prosecution. Ironically, the practice of the Lake County States Attorney’s Office meets the objectives of pedophiles.” The SAO fears the loss of a case based on the jury’s inability to believe a victim’s story, even though a victim might be a child. Child molesters use tactics against children that are so effective that some adults cannot discern whether the child was the victim or a consenting party to the act. In the case against my daughter’s rapist, the ASA’s opening statement read as follows:

Your Honor, if called and sworn to testify, witnesses would testify that on the date in question, August of 2001, the victim in the case that evening had been out and had been given alcohol by an individual in the neighborhood. She arrived home to the house where her cousin and the defendant which is her other cousin lived; that at that time the defendant gave the victim some additional alcohol including some hard liquor, Judge. Then they started to play a truth-or-dare game. Also present was a minor female cousin of the victim. During the truth-or-dare game, your honor, the defendant ended up daring the victim to give him a blow job at which time the defendant did place his penis in the mouth of the victim.

I contacted the ASA’s supervisor and questioned the ASA’s character because the ASA under Michael Waller used the pornographic slang term “blow job” in her opening statement to illustrate a pedophile skillfully manipulate an 11-year old child to perform oral sex on him. The ASA presented the facts of the case in a manner that defamed my daughter’s character. I spent the following several years searching for an understanding of the ASA’s rationale to desecrate an eleven-year-old rape victim. My awareness of the tactics an ASA will use to win his or her case still haunts me to this day. In the local newspaper, most articles on child rape cases result in minimum prison sentences or probation. One article spoke of a high school teacher who violated his student by convincing her to take pornographic pictures of herself and then to text those images to his cell phone. The ASA agreed with the judge’s decision to sentence the convicted sex offender to probation rather than prison “considering the facts of the case.” The ASA’s statement implies that the student should be held part responsible for the crime because she participated in the act. Sadly, crime victims feel ostracized by their family members and in their community because the courts neglect to hold the perpetrators fully responsible. In those cases, victims bare the grunt of public humiliation and shame.

In the case against the child molester who raped my daughter, the judge’s final statement implied that she was part responsible. According to the court transcript, the judge informed the defendant that “the statute is written in a way that is incumbent upon the adults that when a child is in the room, and even if that child may make a step towards you or make you feel like they want to do something inappropriate, you’re the adult. It’s incumbent upon you to step back and say this isn’t right; I’m not going to do this.” Then the judge wished him, “good luck.” The tactics that the ASA used to get a conviction in the case, passed down to the judge. The judge used those tactics as the basis to blame my little girl for putting the defendant in a compromising situation where he could not say no to her for the rape that he intended to commit. Had I not disclosed the information that the detective, regarding penetration concerning minors, had given me at the police station and spoke out against the prosecutor at the beginning of the case, the child molester who raped my young child would not be in prison today. I thank God everyday that my child was spared the heinous injuries that other child rape victims suffer and ultimately end up murdered.

As much as people want to believe that Mike Waller serves justice on behalf of the people, the people’s interests are not represented in the criminal court system in Lake County. Despite the sentencing requirements mandated by law, Mike Wallers’s agenda is to get a conviction, whether or not those backroom sentencing deals will put our children in harm’s way. I am calling on the members of our community to join me and become an advocate for children’s right to justice and support Mike Jacobs as the new State’s Attorney in Lake County. Take a stand against the practice of prosecutors pleading for minimum prison sentences in child sexual assault cases in Lake County. Close the loopholes within the CVRA that Mike Waller uses to his benefit and enables child molesters to walk free and victimize other children. As a loving parent, concerned citizen, and candidate for Lake County Board, Mike Jacobs has my full support for State’s Attorney.

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		© 2008, Paid For by Rotheimer for Lake County Board