Guilty verdict in Hoffman Estates rape trial

After deliberating for nearly five hours into Thursday night, a jury found Jeryme Robert Morgan guilty on all counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, kidnapping and armed robbery.

Morgan, who lived on the 200 block of Butternut Lane in Streamwood, is convicted of forcing a woman into his SUV and raping her at gunpoint in Hoffman Estates in 2007, then stealing money from her bank account.

He is scheduled to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 6.

The victim's family members in the audience declined comment.

In the third day of trial, the prosecution rested its case and jurors heard testimony from three defense witnesses, including an investigator hired by the defense, and two police officers from Elk Grove Village and Hoffman Estates.

All three witnesses were called in an effort to discredit the victim's and an Elk Grove Village woman's identification of Morgan in a police lineup after his arrest on the rape charge.

The Elk Grove Village woman testified Wednesday that a man matching Morgan's description had threatened her with the same gun nine days after the attack, pointing it at her head outside her condo's garage. She said her attacker drove away in a green SUV after dragging her by the hair and shoving her to the ground.

Morgan opted not to testify in his own defense.

In closing arguments, Assistant State's Attorney Shari Chandra said Morgan, who was 21 in May 2007 when he was arrested, forced the victim at gunpoint into his green Lincoln Navigator and sexually assaulted her in the back seat in the early morning hours of April 21 at the parking lot of the Park Place Apartments in Hoffman Estates.

"Her blood/DNA is in the back seat of his car," Chandra said.

Chandra said Morgan robbed the woman of her credit cards and cell phone, and drove around with her looking for ATMs to withdraw money from her bank account. He withdrew money from an ATM while she was still a hostage in his car, before she escaped and he drove off.

Chandra said Morgan tried to conceal his identity by undoing cornrows in his hair after he was pulled over by police, but the victim still positively identified him.

"The evidence in this case is clear. It is convincing, and it is overwhelming," Chandra said. "The science that you've heard supports the physical evidence that you see."

Investigators collected DNA evidence from Morgan's SUV and shipped it to a crime lab in May 2007. After seven months, forensic scientists at the state crime lab in Rockford unsealed and began to examine the evidence, according to testimony given Wednesday by a former crime lab scientist.

Though DNA from the SUV matched the victim's, forensic scientists were not able to definitively match male DNA evidence also found in vehicle to Morgan's.

Morgan's attorney and public defender Calvin Aguilar, suggesting a different person could have used the vehicle, said in closing arguments the trial boils down to the observation and recollection of witnesses. He said the prosecution has the wrong guy.

"It's an identification issue," Aguilar said.

Aguilar said the victim was in no condition to accurately recollect details of her assault because she had been up since 6 a.m. the previous day and had been out drinking with friends before the attack occurred at 3 a.m. April 21.

"She was paralyzed with fear," Aguilar said. "She was afraid for her life the whole time. She was begging the perpetrator for her life."