Lake Zurich man gets 20 years for child rape

A Lake Zurich man who had a judge reject a plea negotiation that would have sent him to prison for 20 years received a 22-year term Wednesday.

Lake County Circuit Judge James Booras said Marco Arana, 25, committed a "horrific and grievous offense" when he raped a 5-year-old girl.

Arana was charged with predatory sexual assault of a child in the Feb. 6, 2006, incident that took place while he was babysitting the girl and her two siblings at her mother's house.

The girl's mother noticed her daughter was bleeding when she came home and took her to the hospital.

The child eventually wound up at Children's Memorial Hospital, where a social worker described her injuries as the worst she had ever seen in a child abuse case.

Last June, a prosecutor and defense attorney presented a plea negotiation that would see Arana sentenced to 20 years out of a maximum of 30.

But Associate Judge Theodore Potkojak would not accept the plea, saying at the time he did not believe the sentence was long enough.

On Wednesday, Assistant State's Attorney Bolling Haxall asked Booras to impose a sentence near the high end of the six- to 30-year scale.

He noted that Arana had told police he had been molested as a child and wanted to find out what being a child abuser felt like.

"Certainly no one would wish upon the defendant the sexual abuse he endured," Haxall said. "But in no way does that excuse what he did to this girl."

Assistant Public Defender Art Kessler urged Booras not to be influenced by the legacy of the rejected negotiation.

"The court should make an independent evaluation of this case," Kessler said. "I believe a sentence in the neighborhood of 15 years is appropriate."

Arana asked for mercy in his statement to the court.

"I would just like to be forgiven for what happened," he said through an interpreter. "I am a human being and we all make mistakes."

Booras said he was making his own judgments about the case, and he had made one about Arana's statement to police.

"The explanation that he offers is that he wanted to know what molesting a child felt like," he said. "I find that to be completely unacceptable."

Haxall said Arana will have to serve 85 percent of the sentence before he is eligible for parole.