Illinois Supreme Court won't block Aurora gymnastics coach's new trial

The Illinois Supreme Court has declined to intervene in the case of a former Aurora gymnastics coach whose child molestation conviction was overturned upon appeal.

The decision means Michael P. Cardamone will receive a new trial.

"It's been a long wait," said attorney Douglas Johnson, who won the successful appeal. "He's always proclaimed his innocence and he looks forward to the next step and coming home."

Last March, the 2nd District Appellate Court overturned Cardamone's conviction and ordered a new trial. In response, prosecutors asked the state high court to intervene. Justices declined in a decision made public Wednesday.

Cardamone was serving a 20-year prison term at Taylorville Correctional Center. He would have been paroled in February 2016.

The 31-year-old man likely will be transferred back to the DuPage County jail to await his new trial. He is expected to ask to be released on bond while waiting.

A DuPage County jury convicted Cardamone after an eight-week trial in 2005 of fondling seven girls under his tutelage at his family's American Institute of Gymnastics. The jury acquitted him of charges involving seven other girls.

In his only prison interview, Cardamone told the Daily Herald earlier this summer he is going to keep fighting until his name is cleared.

"There will be no plea deals," he said. "I have showed up every day in this fight to prove my innocence, and I will continue to do that until this whole nightmare and falsehood is put to rest."

In the 69-page appellate decision, a three-judge panel found that DuPage Circuit Judge Michael Burke erred in allowing too much evidence - up to 257 incidents - of uncharged alleged sexual conduct with the girls.

"The volume of the other-crimes evidence was overwhelming and undoubtedly more prejudicial than probative," wrote Appellate Justice Thomas Callum, now retired, a former DuPage County chief judge.

Burke is now an appellate justice. The appellate panel also took issue in its March ruling with Burke's decision to exclude a defense expert who would have testified how children can develop false memories through suggestive questioning.

DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett has fought the reversal, largely to spare the young accusers from having to endure another emotional trial. He said Wednesday that state appellate prosecutors will ask the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider its decision with the hope the Cardamone petition was overlooked on the court's busy summer case docket.

"It's not unprecedented. It does happen," Birkett said. "If not, we'll be ready for a new trial."

At least 19 girls have accused Cardamone of inappropriately touching them. Some girls never pursued charges or their complaints were unfounded, but prosecutors charged the coach with fondling 14 of them beneath their leotards, usually during stretching exercises.

A sequestered jury deliberated for 22 hours over three days before rendering the split verdict March 11, 2005, after a hard-fought trial with about 100 witnesses who testified over 140 hours in 26 days.

Prosecutors painted Cardamone as a serial child molester who methodically manipulated his gymnasts so the young girls endured repeated abuse rather than betray him. To corroborate them, a 15th girl who was not connected to the gym testified he fondled her during a tumbling class at an Aurora hospital.

The defense team called 86 other gymnasts, parents, teachers and coaches who said they never saw Cardamone make an inappropriate move. The defense said it all began with the first girl's wild imagination, spread through gossip and developed into false memories because of suggestive questioning.