Des Plaines man gets life for sex assault

A Des Plaines man will spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman just three days after he was released from prison, the Cook County Sheriff's Office said Thursday.

Scott Hildreth, 51, was found guilty of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of aggravated kidnapping after a four-day trial last month, police said. Hildreth was released from prison on April 13, 2007, and police say on April 16, 2007, he hid behind a tree in the Iroquois Woods Forest Preserve and waited for another victim. Police said he wore a nylon mask and used a screwdriver to threaten a 41-year-old woman who was jogging in the woods. Hildreth dragged her off the trail, bound her, and sexually assaulted her, police said.

A Des Plaines police officer helped break the case when he remembered similar circumstances in a rape more than 20 years earlier in Mount Prospect of which Hildreth was convicted, police said. Police found that Hildreth was paroled around the time of the 2007 assault, and found that he was living in a house near the jogging trail.