Gurnee Mills kidnapper found guilty

A Lake County jury deliberated for about two hours Thursday before finding Richard Gallatin guilty of all charges in the kidnap and rape of a 19-year-old woman he grabbed in the Gurnee Mills parking lot.

Gallatin, 38, a paroled child molester from Wisconsin, will face up to 120 years in prison when he returns to court May 19 for sentencing. He was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated robbery and kidnapping for the June 5, 2010 abduction and rape of the Grayslake woman.

The woman testified Tuesday that Gallatin, who was living in a campground at the Chain O’ Lakes State Park at the time, forced his way into her car as she was leaving her part-time job at the mall. She said he forced her to drive to an automated teller machine where she withdrew the last $40 in her checking account and gave it to him.

The woman said Gallatin then forced her to drive to Kane County, where they stopped in a church parking lot and he raped her repeatedly. He then made her drop him off at a convenience store near Des Plaines.

Gallatin was identified as the attacker when DNA taken from the woman’s clothing and body was matched to his profile in the national database of convicted felons. He was arrested about three weeks after the attack when someone who knew Gallatin from the campground recognized his picture in a newspaper.

Assistant State’s Attorney Stella Veytsel told the eight women and four men on the jury that Gallatin, who had slept the night before the attack in some bushes near the mall, was destitute and desperate when he set upon the victim.

“He needed money and he was not going to sleep in those bushes again,” Veytsel said. “And she was little, she was pretty and she was alone and there was no one around to help her.”

Assistant Public Defender Kelli Politte asked the jurors to consider her client’s testimony on Wednesday in which he said that the woman agreed to give him a ride to Woodstock, instigated the sex and made up the story of rape after Gallatin told her he may have given her a sexually transmitted disease.

Politte said there were many inconsistencies in what the victim told police in the hours following the attack and what she said during her testimony.

“We expect that someone who goes through a life altering experience is going to have the details burned into their brain,” Politte said. “If the details change every time you tell the story, that is not fear, that is fabrication.”

Politte added an examination of the woman by a sexual assault nurse examiner reported there was no signs of trauma on the victim’s body.

She also asked the jurors to consider that once Gallatin was out of her car, the victim did use her cellphone to summon police to have him arrested immediately, but instead called her parents.

That is exactly what the young woman did, Veytsel said in her closing argument, and it is quite understandable that she did.

“All (the victim) wanted do to was survive, and all she did was survive,” Veytsel said. “And when her parents met her, she ran to her father and let him hold her.”