Lake in the Hills pair guilty in pimp case
After about 5½ hours of deliberations, a jury Thursday convicted two Lake in the Hills women for their role in the prostitution of a 14-year-old from Kansas.
Kari Knox, 37, and Antwanette Atkins, 44, face a minimum of six years in prison and a maximum of 30 when they are sentenced Oct. 18.
The jury acquitted the pair of juvenile pimping, the lesser of the charges.
A third defendant, Donald R. Jones, 53, also of Lake in the Hills, will stand trial separately.
McHenry County prosecutors argued that Knox and Atkins were active participants in a plan to have a 14-year-old from Wichita have sex with two clients Dec. 31, 2009.
Knox and Atkins, prosecutors argued, went with the girl — now 16 — to Walmart to buy sexy tops and underwear, took provocative photos, posted a racy advertisement online, answered calls on a prepaid cellphone, told the girl how to act and drove her from place to place.
“What was key was the work of the Lake in the Hills Police Department, working to corroborate in many ways, the statement given by the victim,” said McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Ryan Blackney after the verdict.
The girl testified Wednesday that after she had sex with the two men, she felt “degraded” and took a bus home the next day.
“This is (the victim) sexed up by these defendants. This is a 14-year-old girl with a baby face,” Assistant State’s Attorney Sheryl Eisenstein said as she showed the ad to jurors. “(The victim) is not a teenage hustler. The only hustler you’ve seen this week are these two defendants.”
Assistant Public Defenders Bill Bligh and Kim Messer argued that the girl’s testimony was not credible — that it was saturated with “I don’t knows” and “I don’t remembers.”
They also focused blame on Jones, saying he was the one who picked up the girl in Kansas after they met online, bought the prepaid cellphone and collected the money afterward.
“Don’t hold an employee responsible for the crimes of the supervisor,” Bligh said.
Finally, they argued that Knox and Atkins had no idea the girl was underage because of her 10-plus tattoos and piercings. The girl testified that she never told Atkins or Knox her age because it never came up in the lone day they spent together.
“She was there representing herself as older and she did a bang-up job,” Messer said.
On Wednesday, Judge Joseph Condon tossed out child pornography charges against Knox and Atkins, saying the photos they took of the girl were “explicit” and “crass” but not “lewd beyond a reasonable doubt.”