DIXON – A deep obsession with the serial rape case that put him behind bars, and an "astonishing distortion of reality," triggered John Spires' attack on a Dixon Correctional Center psychologist, his attorney argued Thursday.

Tom Murray is basing his assertion that Spires was insane at the time of the attack on the testimony of forensic psychiatrist Kishore Thampy.

Murray says Spires, 54, had stopped taking his lithium two months before the attack. The former Dixon Correctional Center inmate has been diagnosed with a multitude of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Thampy testified that Spires' psychotic disorder caused his thinking to become disorganized, making him paranoid, giving him delusions of grandeur and making him "unable to appreciate the criminality of his conduct and distinguish between right and wrong."

On May 11, 2006, Spires grabbed a now 32-year-old senior psychologist, dragged her into a small storage closet and held her hostage for 25 hours. He told her that if she did not have sex with him, he would kill her.

"This is a seriously sick man, and he's a seriously dangerous man," Thampy testified Thursday.

Thampy pointed to several instances of paranoia he says Spires experienced during the standoff. At one point, Spires discovered a small hole in the closet wall and became agitated, fearing the prison's tactical response team would spray gas into the room.

He also placed paper towels over the observation window so officers wouldn't shoot him, Thampy said.

Spires also had expressed fear that other prisoners wanted to kill him, he added.

Spires was delusional, Thampy said, when he told investigators that the woman initiated sex with him.

Lee County Assistant State's Attorney Peter Buh wasn't buying it.

He says Spires was angry because he thought he had been "railroaded" by the legal system, and so he wanted to bring attention to his case.

At the time of the attack, Spires was serving four 60-year sentences for a series of rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. After the attack, he was transferred to Tamms Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison.

Buh pointed to Spires' apparent remorse over the attack, which he expressed to her and to investigators, and to his comments that he was going to death row.

Clearly, he said, Spires understood the consequences of his actions and knew he was doing "a bad thing."

Looking at Thampy's report, Buh noted that Spires had been diagnosed with malingering, a disorder in which a person fabricates or exaggerates symptoms of a mental disorder for personal gain.

In 1978, one evaluator described Spires as an ""extreme manipulator" who would threaten suicide to "get out of unpleasant situations," Buh said.

Based on that, Buh asked Thampy if Spires could have lied during the interview.

Thampy said it was possible, but he didn't think Spires was lying. During their first interview, Spires was uncooperative even though the evaluation "really was in his best interest," Thampy noted.

"He was not trying to represent himself as being mentally ill."

Murray was expected to resume his case today, but closing arguments also were expected, and the case may even go to the jury before day's end.

Earlier in the day, Lee County Associate Judge Jacquelyn Ackert dismissed an aggravated kidnapping charge, ruling that prosecutors did not prove an element of the crime, that Spires intended to secretly confine the psychologist against her will.

Because he "wanted the world to know," Murray argued, the abduction did not fit the legal definition of kidnapping.

Spires now is charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault with a weapon and forcible detention of a correctional center employee. An armed violence charge was dropped prior to trial.