Sentencing begins for Aurora man who touched women's feet
A 55-year-year-old Warrenville woman told police she was "freaked out" and "felt like such a victim" last April when a stranger purposely rubbed his bare feet against her toes at the Warrenville Public Library.
The woman declined to testify Monday during Omar Carlton's sentencing hearing, but prosecutors played a video statement she gave police shortly after the assault.
The woman told police she was wearing open-toed shoes and sitting in an area of the library designated for transferring VHS tapes onto DVDs when Carlton sat particularly close to her.
"Every so often I'd feel something rub on my toes and tickle me," she told police. "It happened three times, and the third time I looked down and his toes were curled right next to me. He was brushing his foot on my foot."
Carlton, 45, of the 1000 block of Fifth Avenue in Aurora, pleaded guilty in October to two counts of aggravated battery in a public place after authorities said he touched women's feet on April 20 while at the Warrenville Public Library and in October 2015 at the North Central College library in Naperville.
"It's not right," the woman said. "Nobody should be allowed to do that."
Carlton was out on bond at the time and accused of making "intentional or prolonged contact" with the bare feet of at least four women studying inside North Central College's Oesterle Library in Naperville on Oct. 8, 2015.
Two Wheaton police detectives also testified Monday that they investigated Carlton for similar assaults at the Wheaton College library in September 1999 and March 2008.
Carlton's sentencing hearing was continued until 10:30 a.m. March 31, when more witnesses are expected to testify and Judge Daniel Guerin is expected to issue his sentencing ruling. Carlton could face two to five years in prison.
Carlton has been held on $200,000 bail since his April arrest.