Life sentence stands for serial rapist

A Lake County judge Monday refused to reduce the life prison sentence given a man who raped and tried to kill a woman on a jogging trail.

The attorney for Christopher Hanson said asking Circuit Judge Fred Foreman to reconsider the sentence laid the groundwork for an appeal.

Hanson, 32, was sentenced to life plus 90 years for aggravated criminal sexual assault, attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping of a 19-year-old Wildwood woman on June 6, 2005.

The life prison sentence was mandated because it was Hanson's fourth conviction for attacks on women. Foreman also sentenced him to 60 years for attempted murder and 30 years aggravated kidnapping.

Defense attorney Ian Kasper asked Foreman to consider lowering the sentence to give Hanson a chance to prove he can be rehabilitated.

"No one is rehabilitated by a life sentence," Kasper said. "I would like to remind the court of my client's significant history of mental illness and lack of treatment."

Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Eric Kalata asked that the sentence not be changed.

"The defendant had an opportunity to go into sex offender treatment prior to the sentencing and did not," Kalata said. "If society cannot be safe when he is outside of prison walls, then he should remain inside prison walls."

Foreman denied the motion without comment, and Kasper announced his intention to file an appeal of Hanson's conviction and sentence.

In addition to the 2005 case, Hanson was convicted of two attacks on women in 1993 and one in 2000.