Man guilty of '98 Palatine molestation

The memory of her molestation was nearly a decade old by the time the now-17-year-old girl took the stand.

Yet her testimony was articulate, clear, unshaken and "incredibly credible," Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta Jr. said Tuesday, moments before finding a 48-year-old former family friend guilty of the 1998 crime.

Ronnie Watts of Rockford was convicted of two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault in connection with the molestation of the girl, then 8 years old, in his Palatine apartment bedroom.

He'll be back in court Sept. 10, and could be sentenced to life in prison because of his background. Watts pleaded guilty in 1988 to a sex crime involving his young stepdaughter and also is charged in Winnebago County with molesting another girl.

During a trial before Fecarotta, prosecutors painted Watts as a man who committed unthinkable betrayals of trust with girls whom he was supposed to care for.

In the 1998 crime, prosecutors said Watts had been baby sitting the girl and her brother when he took the girl into his bedroom to watch a movie. While on the bed, the girl testified, he removed her clothes and molested her.

The girl, who came forward this year at the urging of a friend, said she'd been afraid to tell earlier, since Watts was a family friend and because she didn't want to lose out on the toys he often bought her.

Watts' mother testified in her son's defense, saying Watts didn't have a TV in his room when the crime allegedly occurred in early 1998.

Watts' attorney questioned the length of time it took for the girl to report the incident, suggesting she concocted her story after learning of Watts' background. He also said her testimony wasn't believable.

Watts' mother and wife were in the courtroom Tuesday but declined comment.