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Caregiver pleads guilty to sexually assaulting disabled woman, causing pregnancy

A man accused of impregnating a disabled resident of a home for profoundly disabled people pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated criminal sexual assault.

Isaiah Fields, 24, of Aurora, could receive six to 30 years in prison when Kane County Judge John Barsanti sentences him in March.

According to the plea, between Aug. 1, 2023, and Sept. 5, 2023, Fields assaulted a woman while working as her caregiver at the Marklund Hyde Center in unincorporated Geneva.

The victim, age 42, has lived at the Hyde Center for 20 years, prosecutor Matthew Rodgers said. She has Rett syndrome, a neurological disorder that has made her unable to read, write or talk. Because of this, she could not consent to sexual activity, he said.

The woman was discovered to be pregnant in April 2024 and gave birth shortly thereafter. Authorities have said that a distended abdomen, one of the conditions of her disorder, masked the pregnancy.

Fields worked for Marklund for one month.

He also pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal sexual abuse for a 2023 attack on a woman at a home in Aurora. He touched the breasts of the woman while she was sleeping on a couch, according to Rodgers. He was sentenced to one year in prison in that case.

Marklund provides residential care and educational services to profoundly disabled children and adults. Besides the Hyde Center, it has facilities in Bloomingdale and Elgin.

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