Oak Brook man sentenced to 72 years for sexually assaulting child
A 40-year-old Oak Brook man likely will spend the rest of his life in prison for sexually assaulting a child.
DuPage County Judge Liam Brennan sentenced Andrew Hui Thursday to 72 years in prison on 12 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault. He will have to serve at least 85%, or roughly 61 years.
Brennan also sentenced him to three years for aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He will have to serve at least half of that.
A jury found him guilty in July.
Hui was charged with assaulting the child, with whom he lived, dozens of times between June 2011 and April 2013. He enlisted in the Army shortly before leaving the home.
In 2015, the girl told her father about the attacks and the father reported it to authorities.
The girl, now 15, testified at length at the trial, even though it was Hui himself who cross-examined her. He acted as his own attorney for most of the case. Shortly before the trial he asked for a public defender but then fired him.
The girl did not attend court Thursday but submitted a statement that was read into the record.
She said she suffers from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She has been suicidal, she said, including a time she almost jumped off an apartment building.
For a while, she drank alcohol, binge-ate, purged and vaped excessively to deal with her pain. The sight of some household objects, including a couch where attacks took place, trigger emotions. She has nightmares frequently. She feels impure and blames herself for the effect this case has had on her family, she said.
"He is the one who shall not be named - the Valdemort of my story," she said, referring to a character in the "Harry Potter" novels. She also referred to the evil character in "The Little Mermaid" who takes away Ariel's voice.
"But now I have a voice, and there is no shutting me up," she said.
The father told Brennan he hates himself.
"I am dead inside … the guilt that I have for inviting the defendant into my home is all-consuming," he said.
"It is my hope that this is the last time I will ever see you in my lifetime," he told Hui.
When Hui was allowed to speak to Brennan to influence the sentence, he asked for permission to turn around from the defense table and address the father. That was granted, but when Hui began to speak in a foreign language, the judge demanded that he speak in English, and only to the judge.
Brennan denied Hui's motion for a new trial. Hui intends to file an appeal. He contends the state's attorney investigator was not properly authorized to be an investigator or to arrest him, that the victim lied, that the jury should have been provided a transcript of the girl's testimony when it requested it during deliberations, that he had ineffective counsel, and that Brennan made incorrect rulings on many motions and objections Hui raised through the course of the case.
"This court is just an agent of the state, agreeing with them (prosecutors)," Hui said.