Ex-Crystal Lake man convicted of child molestation gets resentencing – but still gets 60 years in prison – Shaw Local

On Monday, a former Crystal Lake man convicted in March of sexually assaulting a child was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the second time.

Juan Cheverez, 41, was convicted of three counts of Class X predatory sexual assault of a child under 12 years old. In May he was sentenced to 60 years in prison. However, he was granted a new sentencing hearing after Assistant Public Defender Kim Messer filed a motion for reconsideration, saying Judge Tiffany Davis erred when she “inappropriated the defendant’s silence in his speech at the time of sentencing.” emphasized.”

Speech is a step before sentencing in which the judge addresses the defendant and the defendant often makes a statement of remorse.

“The court found in its ruling that the defendant had not made a speech,” Messer said in the motion. “The court found that the defendant had not made any ‘statement’ nor demonstrated any ‘accountability’ that would reflect remorse.”

Messer said Cheverez’s “constitutional right to remain silent extends to the sentencing, and the court may not draw negative inferences from the exercise of that right.” The court may not consider the defendant’s silence in the speech as a hindrance in determining an appropriate sentence. “

At Monday’s re-sentencing hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Ashur Youash again called for a prison sentence of 90 years. The charges against Cheverez range from 18 to 180 years in prison.

Youash reminded Davis that she had read the victim impact statement and seen the photos of the child during the assaults. The judge, Youash said, knew what impact the attacks would have on the child “for the rest of his life.”

Cheverez was accused of assaulting the child multiple times between about 2007 and 2012, when the child was about 6 to about 10 years old, prosecutors and the judge said.

Messer said the new sentence should not exceed the original sentence of 60 years and called for the sentence to be shortened. She said he “may have been given too much weight” because he didn’t make a speech in the previous sentence.

Davis asked Cheverez if he wanted to comment Monday, to which he said no. She noted that Cheverez has a daughter who lives with her grandfather in Mexico, whose mother has passed away. Cheverez said his daughter needed him. But Davis said the risk he posed to the community outweighed the loss to his family.

The attacks are “ongoing,” Davis said. She recalled the girl who testified during the trial saying Cheverez did “whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.” Davis said she and the jury found the alleged victim to be credible and Cheverez “not credible.”

“He denied everything down to the last detail,” Davis said.

She was a little girl, “with a backpack on her back, her hair in pigtails, going to school.” The defendant’s actions deprived her of her childhood. [She] said he threatened her and her family’s lives [if she told] and she told… “believable,” Davis said.

Cheverez must serve 85% of his sentence, or 51 years. He then serves mandatory supervised release of three years to life in prison. He will also be required to register as a sex offender for life. Cheverez will receive credit for 960 days in county jail since his arrest.