Grayslake woman describes mall kidnapping, rape

It was raining hard when she left her job at the end of her shift, the young woman said, so she sprinted across the Gurnee Mills parking lot to her car and tried to quickly pull the door closed once she got inside.

But the door would not close.

A prosecutor told a Lake County jury Tuesday that it wouldn't close because Richard Gallatin, 38, was holding on to it and was about to inflict a horrifying ordeal on the 19-year-old college student from Grayslake.

Gallatin, a paroled child molester whose last known address was in Pleasant Prairie Wis., is charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated robbery and kidnapping in connection with what happened June 5, 2010.

Assistant State's Attorney Ken Larue told the eight women and four men of the jury that Gallatin held an object the woman believed was a gun to her neck, forced her to drive to an automated teller machine and withdraw money. He then directed her to drive to a Kane County parking lot where he raped her, Larue said.

Gallatin was arrested about three weeks later at a campground in Chain O' Lakes State Park. Larue said DNA taken from the woman's body and her clothing matches Gallatin's genetic profile.

Of course it does, Assistant Public Defender Timothy MacArthur said in his opening statement, because Gallatin and the woman did have sex that night.

“We are going to concede almost every piece of evidence the state is going to put before you,” MacArthur said, “with the exception of the victim's testimony that she did not consent to have sex that night.”

The woman, testifying Tuesday, said Gallatin forced his way into her car as he held what she thought was a gun to her neck, then demanded her cell phone and any money she had.

She could give him only $2, she said, so he ordered her to drive to a bank in Grayslake where she withdrew $40 from the ATM and gave that to him.

Gallatin then directed her to drive west on Route 120, she said. After a series of turns during an hour in an area she was unfamiliar with, they arrived in a church parking lot in the Kane County community of Campton Hills, she said.

Once there, the woman said, Gallatin ordered her to remove her clothes.

“I was so scared that I couldn't even cry any more,” she said. “I couldn't believe this was happening to me.”

After he raped her three times, the woman said, Gallatin told her to drive to a convenience store in Forest Park, where he returned her cell phone and got out of her car and walked away.

Nearly hysterical, she drove away and called her parents who met her at a gas station in Buffalo Grove, the woman said.

They took her to the Gurnee police station that night, she said, and she went to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville the following morning.

An examination of the woman by a certified sexual assault nurse examiner produced the DNA that police eventually matched to Gallatin, prosecutors say. An arrest warrant was issued in late June, and he was arrested July 1 by police who received a tip he was at the campground.

Toward the end of the woman's testimony Tuesday, Assistant State's Attorney Stella Veytsel asked if she remembered if Gallatin had said anything before getting out of her car at the Forest Park store.

“Yes, he did,” the woman replied. “He said he knew he was going to get caught.”

Gallatin, who was convicted of attempted first-degree sexual assault of a child in Wisconsin in 2003, faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted in this case.