Man convicted in child molesting case

A Lake County jury deliberated a little more than an hour Friday before convicting Carl Horak of 13 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child.

Horak, 26, formerly of Wauconda Township, faces a mandatory prison sentence of 78 to 120 years when he returns to court Feb. 11.

He and his wife, Tiffany Horak, 27, were arrested Jan. 18, 2008 after an 8-year-old girl told a relative the couple had been molesting her over a five-month period.

Tiffany Horak pleaded guilty in July and received a 14-year sentence in exchange for a promise to provide truthful testimony against her husband.

However, in her testimony Thursday she at first said she could not remember any of the attacks or statements she had attributed to her husband, then said she made up all the information she had given to prosecutors.

Friday's session of the trial began on a combative note when Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Ari Fisz attempted to introduce two telephone calls Carl Horak made from the Lake County jail.

In the calls, Horak appears to be encouraging witnesses who will testify for the defense to lie for him.

"I don't, I don't care if it's the truth or a (expletive) lie," he says in one of the calls. "I don't care."

But defense attorney Robert Ritacca objected to introduction of the tapes, saying because Fisz obtained the tapes from the jail Thursday night, the defense did not have enough time to study them.

Circuit Judge Fred Foreman barred Fisz from playing the tapes for the jury, and Ritacca asked for a mistrial to be declared in the case.

He said his client made more than 500 phone calls, and he wanted time to listen to each one as part of his defense of Horak.

"There are 500 calls on those tapes and I have not heard one of them," Ritacca said. "There might be 500 witnesses I have to talk to."

Foreman denied the request for the mistrial, saying if Ritacca believed his client's phone calls were important for the defense he could have obtained the recordings from jail officials himself.

Horak then took the stand and denied he did anything of a sexual nature to the girl, responding "absolutely not," each time Ritacca asked him if he had committed a specific act.

In his closing argument, Fisz asked the 10 men and two women on the jury to believe the girl and not Horak.

"Little girls do not lie about sexual assault," he said. "If a kid lies at all, it will be to get themselves out of an uncomfortable situation, not to get into one."

Ritacca told the jurors he did not believe the girl was lying, but that she was simply repeating a story a relative told her to tell.

"This little girl had a source," Ritacca said. "No little girl is going to say she had sex with an adult without having a source."