Lombard man convicted of molesting 9-year-old

After a trusted adult inappropriately touched her, the 9-year-old Lombard girl made an immediate outcry to her parents.

Walter A. Rinebold said the child must have misinterpreted his touch, but she was insistent.

"He said, 'This is how we do things around here,'" the now 12-year-old girl testified earlier this week. "I was kind of scared. I couldn't move."

After less than three hours of deliberations, a DuPage County jury Friday found overwhelming truth in her words. Members convicted the 54-year-old Lombard man of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Rinebold did not outwardly react to the guilty verdict before deputies led him off to jail. Members of his victim's family quietly wept in the courtroom gallery.

The child testified at the onset of the three-day trial that Rinebold inappropriately touched her May 21, 2006, in her bed after she had fallen asleep while playing outside during a family gathering. She said Rinebold stopped when her father came in the room.

The defense team, Jeffrey Kendall and Joseph Solon, Jr., argued it was a weak police investigation that lacked physical evidence, such as DNA, or the defendant's confession. They questioned the time frame and accused police of asking the child suggestive questions.

But prosecutors Enza LaMonica and Michael Pawl urged jurors to recall the girl's testimony and watch her in the 2006 videotaped police interview to determine who was truthful.

"That 9-year-old girl did what she was supposed to do," LaMonica said. "She did what it takes some victims years to do and she did it immediately. There was no mistake. There was no misinterpretation. This was sexual abuse of a child."

The jury also heard similar allegations against Rinebold involving another child.

Rinebold, of 139 S. Westmore Ave., Lombard, faces probation or three to seven years in prison.

DuPage Circuit Judge John Kinsella presided over the trial. Rinebold is due in court April 30.