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Authorities want repeat sex offender committed after prison release

The Illinois attorney general's office is seeking to have a 49-year-old Aurora man classified as a sexually violent person and detained indefinitely by the state's Department of Human Services after his prison release.

Joseph Gonzalez, formerly of the 400 block of Claim Street, is nearing release after serving an 18-year sentence for a 1998 Aurora rape.

Gonzalez's record of violence against women dates back to 1988 when he received probation for public indecency.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison for a sexual assault during a home burglary in 1989, records show. After serving half that sentence, he was accused in 1993 of fondling two women in and around an Aurora casino by reaching under their skirts and sentenced to 364 days in jail, according to court records.

In the 1998 rape, he offered to walk a woman home from a bar and attacked her in an open field in the 200 block of South Broadway in Aurora, according to court records and a report by clinical psychologist Allison Schechter, who interviewed Gonzalez in prison in February 2014.

In his pre-release evaluation, Gonzalez said be believes some women say “no” when they really mean “yes” and bring on sexual attacks by how they dress, said Schechter, who concluded Gonzalez has a personality disorder, is psychotic and has hallucinations.

“He has demonstrated that repeated charges, convictions, punishment, incarcerations, and repeatedly being placed on community supervision does not stop his sexual offending behaviors,” Schechter wrote. “Since his most recent incarceration, he has not participated in any sex offender treatment, which indicates he has not put any protective barriers into place to curb his deviant sexual interest and prevent future offending behaviors.”

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Gonzalez is set for release April 29.

Earlier this month, Kane County Judge James Hallock ruled there was probable cause to have Gonzalez detained by the Department of Human Services until a jury decides whether he is a sexually violent person.

Under a 1998 law, a sexually violent person must be convicted of a violent sex crime, have a mental disorder and be “substantially probable” to commit another sex crime.

People determined to be sexually violent are detained by the state and treated at the Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility until they are deemed fit to re-enter society.

Since the law went into effect, the Illinois attorney general's office has had more than 330 people committed to Rushville.

Gonzalez is next due in Kane County court May 15.

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