Elk Grove man guilty of sexual assault

By Barbara Vitello

“If you cannot trust the messenger, you cannot trust the message.”

Attorney James Casement began his closing argument Thursday in defense of his client William Rouse by questioning the credibility of his accuser, a 27-year-old woman who claimed Rouse sexually assaulted her last year following a get-together at Rouse’s Elk Grove Village home.

Their guilty verdicts suggested the Rolling Meadows jurors trusted the messenger and believed her message.

After deliberating a little more than two hours, the five-woman, seven-man jury convicted Rouse, 30, of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault. Rouse, who was immediately taken into custody, faces a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 90 years in prison, prosecutors said. He must complete at least 85 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

Rouse remained composed as the clerk read the verdict, which brought the defendant’s wife and family to tears.

Deliberations followed a three-day trial during which Rouse’s wife stated that she and the woman had been drinking wine and snorting Adderall, which is used to tread attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, throughout the evening.

Jurors seemingly rejected Casement’s attempt to discredit the victim, who he claimed offered differing versions of her story. Six witnesses — including police and paramedics — testified they believed the woman was intoxicated when they spoke to her shortly after the attack, which occurred during the early morning hours of Sept. 11, 2010, Casement said.

“How do you prove a negative?” said Casement, referring to the lack of physical evidence tying his client to the assault. Prosecutors acknowledged that no DNA linked Rouse to a sexual attack.

Casement told the jury that the living room area in which the woman said the assault occurred showed no signs of a struggle. To that end, he cited a coffee table located next to the couch where the woman said Rouse pushed her face into the cushions and threatened to “snap her neck.” The contents of the coffee table, including a wineglass, tumbler and baby bottle, remained undisturbed, Casement said.

“Is it possible there could be a violent attack without that baby bottle spilling?” he said.

He also asked why the woman didn’t scream, which would have awakened Rouse’s wife and the couple’s baby.

“It didn’t happen, that’s why,” said Casement, who proposed that drugs and alcohol led to distorted perceptions of reality. Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Gerber bristled at what he called the “character assassination” of the victim, who admitted to drinking five or six glasses of wine and taking her prescribed dosage of Adderall that day.

“How much does this woman have to go through?” asked Gerber in his closing argument. “It’s rape. It’s character assassination. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s lies.”

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Fecarotta set April 27 for post-trial motions or sentencing.