Palatine man gets maximum sentence for peeping

A 34-year-old convicted sex offender has been sentenced to the maximum time in jail allowed for an Aug. 13, 2007, peeping incident.

Kurt Hauser of Palatine received a 364-day term after he was found guilty last week of disorderly conduct. The sentence is the most time a misdemeanor crime carries.

Hauser, who served prison time for a 1999 sex assault, has been held on $1.5 million bond since his mid-August arrest. His attorneys argue he's eligible for day-for-day jail time credit, and that he's already served as much time as he should.

But Hauser remains in custody on other disorderly conduct charges related to alleged window peeping. His next case, also a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, will come up in March, Assistant State's Attorney Matt Fakhoury said.

In the Aug. 13 incident, prosecutors said Hauser peered through the window as a 40-year-old woman undressed in her Greeley Street apartment in Palatine.

The woman's husband saw Hauser hiding in the bushes and called police, who later caught Hauser as he crawled in dark clothing toward his own home on the 200 block of East Palatine Road.

Assistant Public Defender Natalie Fredrickson had argued there was no evidence Hauser was peering in for a lewd reason, something prosecutors had to prove.