Carpentersville man sentenced to 45 years in sex abuse case

A Carpentersville man was sentenced Wednesday to 45 years in prison for sexually abusing and grooming a 13-year-old girl.

Constantino Vasquez-Juan, 38, of the 7000 block of Lowell Street, failed to attend the sentencing. He also did not show up for his trial. A Kane County jury convicted him in absentia on Nov. 2, 2021, on 15 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and one count of grooming.

Vasquez-Juan was arrested in September 2019 after the girl’s father found text messages of a sexual nature on her cellphone.

The dad thought the telephone number looked familiar, so he checked his phone and saw it matched that of Vasquez-Juan.

The two were friends when they lived in the same village in Mexico. Vasquez-Juan lived with the father and his family in Carpentersville from April through June 2019.

The father confronted his daughter, who told him she had been abused. The daughter told authorities she had exchanged nude photos with Vasquez-Juan and “he treated her nice and used to buy her gifts,” according to an affidavit filed in an application for a search warrant for Vasquez-Juan’s phone.

The girl said Vasquez-Juan often told her to delete the messages, according to the affidavit.

Vasquez-Juan was held on $125,000 bail when he was arrested in September 2019. It was lowered to $75,000, and he posted $7,500 and was released.

He attended several court hearings via Zoom after being released, but he failed to attend a hearing a few days before his trial.

His attorney, Assistant Public Defender Nicholas Feda, tried to get the sentencing delayed, arguing that nobody knows why Vasquez-Juan missed the trial and sentencing.

Judge Alice Tracy denied the request. She said his absence was willful.

He could have been sentenced to probation, conditional discharge or up to 105 years in prison.

Vasquez-Juan will have to serve at least 50% of his sentence before being eligible for parole.

https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20220119/carpentersville-man-sentenced-to-45-years-in-sex-abuse-case