Mundelein man gets 100 days after sex sting

A 52-year-old Mundelein man received a 100-day work release jail sentence Friday in connection with his attempt to have sex with who he thought was a 15-year-old Elmhurst girl.

Wayne Kagebein was arrested in November 2009 by Elmhurst police at an apartment complex in that city. Prosecutors said he was arrested with condoms, thinking he was meeting a 15-year-old girl he had been having an online relationship with for nearly a month.

Kagebein had actually been chatting online with an Elmhurst police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty in June to felony grooming - enticing a minor into a sex act.

During Friday's sentencing hearing, DuPage County Judge Daniel Guerin said he intended to impose a sentence that would hopefully deter others from doing what Kagebein had tried to do.

"The Internet has been hijacked by sexual predators and deviants," Guerin said. "It's become a serious problem."

Prosecutors also noted that Kagebein had admitted to chatting with at least two other teenage girls online in a sexual manner during his interview with police following his arrest.

Assistant State's Attorney Demetri Demopoulos asked the judge for a 180-day jail sentence, to show him and other would-be predators "that there are actual consequences."

With no prior criminal record of any kind, Kagebein pleaded with the judge for probation. He called the incident a "mistake" that happened in a "moment of poor judgement and sheer stupidity."

Kagebein's wife and employer also asked the judge for leniency.

Guerin admonished the father of two teenage boys that he should have considered all the damage he was doing to his life and his family's before "trolling the web ... looking for children to have sex with."

Kagebein's sentence allows him to go to work during the weekday, but spend his nights and weekends behind bars. He will have to serve the full 100 days because of the work release condition, prosecutors said. He has to report to the DuPage jail at 6 p.m. Sept. 22.

Upon his release he will be on sex offender probation for two years and must register as a sex offender for 10 years. He can't have any unsupervised contact with any minors and the county probation department has to install controls on his computer that bar him from particular Internet sites. He also has to submit a DNA sample.