Man gets 58 years for sexual assault of elderly woman
A Glendale Heights man was sentenced Thursday to 58 years in prison for sexually assaulting an elderly woman in her Addison home.
“His actions in this case are nothing short of depraved,” DuPage County Judge Ann Celine O’Hallaren Walsh said about Anthony Lane as she sentenced him on one count of aggravated criminal sexual assault.
A jury convicted Lane, 55, in January of home invasion and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault.
But in April, Walsh overturned the verdicts on two of the sexual assault counts because the victim’s testimony contradicted the specific actions alleged in those two counts.
And on May 14, prosecutors asked to drop the home invasion charge. Walsh granted their request. Court records do not indicate why the prosecution dropped the charge, but a spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office said it was a procedural move related to the sentencing.
Walsh said Thursday that Lane knew the 92-year-old woman was small, frail and ill because he had seen her receiving kidney dialysis at the same place his wife received dialysis.
On Nov. 22, 2021, he followed the woman home, sneaked into her garage, and waited for her, Walsh said. He bound her hands and wrapped her whole head in duct tape, Walsh said, which tore an earring out. Lane carried her upstairs to a bedroom, placed her face down on a bed and assaulted her.
Walsh, noting the woman lived alone and had worked into her 80s, said the woman’s home was her sanctuary — a safe place and a symbol of her independence.
“The defendant took much more from (the victim) Nov. 22, 2021, than the $30 he stole from her,” Walsh said.
The charge normally would have carried a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, but Walsh ruled he was eligible for a longer sentence because of a 1999 conviction for home invasion.
In that case, he broke into a woman’s bedroom through a window and attempted to sexually assault her, Walsh said. He was on parole at the time for two robberies. He later committed a forgery while out on parole.
“It (the criminal history) exposes a gross criminogenic cycle which rears its ugly head every time he is let out of custody,” said Walsh, adding he should not be out of prison “at least until he is very, very old.”
Lane must serve at least 85% of the sentence before he is eligible for parole. He received 1,147 days worth of credits for time spent in the DuPage County jail and for programs he participated in while jailed.