Twice-convicted sex offender deemed sexually violent, will remain in hospital

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Tuesday that a Kendall County judge had found a registered sex offender who had been convicted twice during the 1990s to be a sexually violent person.

Judge John F. McAdams ordered 61-year-old Steven Casper to remain in the custody of the Illinois Department of Human Services for treatment.

Casper will be returned to a state hospital and detention facility in downstate Rushville.

Casper was convicted in 1999 of criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually assaulting nine students who received private music lessons from him.

At the time, Casper was employed at a music store and offered private music lessons at students’ homes in Kendall and DuPage counties, acquiring as many as 60 students. The victims’ ages ranged from 11 to 16.

In 1991 Casper was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually abusing several male students when he was employed as a school music teacher in Macon County. He was released on parole in 1993.

“After being convicted once of abusing the students in his care, the offender again violated the trust students and their families placed in him by continuing to abuse his music students,” Raoul said in a statement. “I am hopeful the judge’s decision will help prevent this individual from being able to abuse other Illinois children.”

Violent sex offenders who have served their prison sentences can be committed to a state mental hospital if prosecutors prove that they have a psychiatric disorder and are likely to reoffend.