28-year-old guilty of traveling to Schaumburg for sex with teen
Defense attorney J. Nicolas Albukerk acknowledged Tuesday that Concepción Junetti Padilla behaved recklessly when he traveled from New York City to Schaumburg two years ago to have sex with a teenage girl he met online. But Albukerk insisted Padilla's actions did not amount to aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Fecarotta, who presided over Padilla's bench trial, saw things differently.
What Albukerk called reckless, Fecarotta called criminal. And on Tuesday afternoon, Fecarotta found the 28-year-old guilty of the Class 2 felony, which carries a possible sentence of three to seven years. Probation is also available.
The court agreed with Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Todd Dombrowski's assertion that Padilla traveled from his home in the 100 block of Richmond Hill to the victim's home intending to have sex with a girl he knew was 16.
The victim testified she told Padilla she was 16 and he told her he was 18 when they met in an online chat room in August 2008. Phone calls and text messages led to what she described as a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, which continued even after she discovered several months later that Padilla was really 26. Her mother forbade any more contact with Padilla and took her cell phone away, but the now 18-year-old testified she continued the relationship using a cell phone Padilla sent her.
They arranged to meet at the girl's house in March 2009, about a week before her 17th birthday, while her parents were out of town. She testified that she and a friend picked Padilla up at the airport. She said while her father slept upstairs, she ushered Padilla into the finished basement where she said he assaulted her several times. After her father left to join her mother the next morning, the girl said Padilla assaulted her several more times before returning to New York the next day.
Asked by Albukerk why she didn't call for help she said, "at that point, I had given up."
The girl testified she told her mother when she returned home and her mother contacted police. Posing online as the victim, a Schaumburg detective arranged a return visit with Padilla who was arrested on May 21, 2009, at O'Hare International Airport.
Dombrowski introduced into evidence Padilla's handwritten statement to police admitting he had sex with the girl. The prosecution also introduced into evidence a washcloth, towel and razor from the home containing Padilla's DNA.
Under cross examination by Albukerk, the teen admitted she told the investigating officer she participated willingly and that Padilla did not force her to have sex.
On cross-examination, the victim's mother admitted her daughter had been emotionally volatile in the past and was briefly hospitalized several months earlier because she and her husband feared the girl might hurt herself after they prohibited any contact between her and Padilla.
In pronouncing Padilla guilty, Fecarotta placed blame squarely on the defendant, saying the man lied about his age because he knew contact with the teenager was wrong.
"What really bothers me is that he sneaks into the house while the father is sleeping. That to me is outrageous," said Fecarotta, who rejected the defense position that the sex was consensual.
"It doesn't matter if (the victim) is a little off," said Fecarotta, adding that the laws are made to protect vulnerable people like her.
Padilla next appears in a Rolling Meadows courtroom on June 21 for sentencing.