West Chicago man gets 20 years for abducting, abusing kids

A West Chicago man was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for abducting and sexually abusing children on multiple occasions.

Giuseppe Ressa, 36, of the 300 block of Post Oak Circle, was found guilty in March of five counts of child abduction and two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse after a two-day bench trial before DuPage County Judge Robert Miller. Ressa has been held in the DuPage jail since June 4, 2015.

Ressa will be required to serve half his sentence before being eligible for parole.

Authorities said Ressa approached a 5-year-old boy and the boy's 7-year-old sister on May 27, 2015, on the playground of the apartment complex where they lived in Lisle. They said Ressa made physical contact with the girl as she played on the slide and offered the boy toys if he would accompany him to his vehicle.

The children's parents reported what happened to Lisle police, who identified Ressa as a possible suspect.

Five days later, while conducting surveillance on Ressa, detectives observed him with three children in front of an apartment building in Addison. Ressa gave the children candy and told them he would give them more if they accompanied him to another apartment building.

As the two younger children began to follow Ressa, the elder child returned to the family's apartment and told her mother what was happening. During that time, Ressa and the two other children walked to the entrance of an apartment building and continued their conversation. While they were talking, Ressa rubbed the upper leg of a 7-year-old girl.

It was at that point detectives placed him under arrest.

"This case should serve as a notice to parents to remind their children that there are some very dangerous people in the world and that if approached by a stranger, they should immediately get away from that person and tell a trusted adult," DuPage State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in a written statement.