Bensenville man gets 25 years for raping young relative

A Bensenville man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday for repeatedly molesting a preteen relative he used to live with over a span of three years.

DuPage County Circuit Judge George Bakalis called the acts committed against the young girl "unspeakable" during Juan C. Cortez's sentencing hearing. Bakalis ordered the 29-year-old Cortez to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence, which includes a little more than a year of time served in the county jail since his arrest in August 2008. He will be eligible for parole in 2029, prosecutors said.

Bakalis could have sentenced Cortez to a minimum of six years behind bars or a maximum of 30.

Cortez pleaded guilty to raping the girl in June. He confessed to sodomizing the girl three times between 2006 and 2008, prosecutors said. The sexual attacks began when she was 7 years old and ended when she was 9.

A relative of the girl's testified the youngster had complained of beatings at the hands of Cortez as early as 2003 when they first lived together in Addison. Prosecutor Demetri Demopoulos submitted photographs the relative had taken in 2003 of marks left on the girl after she said Cortez had beaten her with a belt and kicked her.

DuPage County State's Attorney Investigator Robert Holguin testified the girl told him Cortez stuffed a sock in her mouth so she wouldn't scream during at least one of the attacks. Holguin also said the girl told him Cortez had threatened to kill her and her mother if she told anyone about the attacks.

Steve Klein, Cortez's defense attorney, sought leniency. He said Cortez immediately confessed to the crimes when confronted by authorities and is remorseful.

Klein submitted transcripts of jailhouse phone calls with the girl's mother where Cortez asks the woman to ask the girl for forgiveness on his behalf. Klein attempted to paint Cortez as a hardworking immigrant who was taking care of a family in the United States and his family in Mexico, which included a diabetic mother.

"In no way did he claim he was innocent," Klein said. "There's no doubt what he did was bad, but that's not the whole picture of Juan Cortez."

Cortez denied the threat allegations through an interpreter during Friday's hearing. He told Bakalis he had been honest with investigators about his crimes and never wavered about his innocence when confronted with the accusations of threats during the interrogation.

But Demopoulos countered that Cortez should receive the maximum sentence because of the severity of his crimes.

"This defendant violated his victim in the worst imaginable way," the prosecutor said. "He's only here now because a little girl under the fear of death and other violence stepped forward. He deserves the maximum sentence."

Cortez, who has been living in the area illegally since 1999, will likely be deported to Mexico upon his release from prison, authorities said.