Glendale Hts. man gets 18 years for molesting girl

A Glendale Heights man was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison for molesting a girl, beginning when she was 8, while the child was in his care.

Members of Levy Castro's family, including his mother, openly wept in court as the 37-year-old man was led back to his jail cell.

The child's mother, seated on the opposite side of the courtroom gallery, also became emotional as the violence her daughter silently suffered was told. The girl eventually made an outcry in summer 2007 that Castro had repeatedly raped her, beginning in June 2005 when she was 8. She is now 11.

Castro pleaded guilty Jan. 5 to predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and, in exchange, prosecutors agreed not to ask the judge for a more than 30-year term.

Prosecutor Brian Perkins presented evidence during Thursday's sentencing hearing that Castro had molested another girl years earlier.

"This is a horrible, horrible crime," Perkins said of the latest crime. "He treated her as his own sexual plaything. When she closes her eyes at night, in her nightmares, it's his face that she sees."

The defense attorney, Paul Paprocki, asked the judge for a minimum six-year prison term. He argued Castro pleaded guilty to spare the girl an emotional trial. He also said Castro did not have a prior violent criminal history and held down two jobs to support his two young children, ages 8 and 3, who are being raised by their mothers.

Castro also completed about 150 self-help and religious classes while in the DuPage County jail.

"He is trying to make himself a better person and make amends to God and the system," Paprocki said. "I think that speaks volumes about what kind of a person he is."

In meting out a punishment, DuPage Circuit Judge John Kinsella spoke of Castro's two contrasting sides. The judge said Castro showed little remorse.

"There is a dark side of Mr. Castro," Kinsella said. "It's a part of his soul most of his family may not know, but (the victim) did come to know it. There is no righting of this wrong by any sentence that I impose. That little girl suffered greatly. Until he comes to terms with what he did to her, I don't see any progress with his rehabilitation."

Castro must serve 85 percent of his sentence and then immigration officials will deport him back to his native Guatemala. He came to the U.S. in 1991.