Teenager testifies in Sterling sex abuse trial
Note to readers: Sauk Valley Newspapers strives to protect the identity of crime victims. Although the witness in this story testified in open court, the newspaper has decided not to name her.
STERLING – Swiveling in her chair, a 15-year-old Sterling girl told a Whiteside County jury Wednesday that a family friend, former Morrison resident John R. Stone, molested her when she was 11.
Stone, 48, of Rockford, a convicted sex offender now charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, took the stand and denied it.
According to the girl, Stone, whom she met when she was 6, was a close family friend who often took her and her younger sister to the park, to the movies, and even baby sat them several times. The three would play “house” on a bunk bed in her sister’s room, she testified.
In early 2006, the game turned inappropriate, she said.
Once, she dozed off on the top bunk and awoke to find Stone’s hand inside her shirt. She grabbed a phone and whacked him in the head to get him to stop, she testified.
“I felt really hurt that someone who I had at least halfway trusted was doing something like that to me,” she said.
Several months later, while they again were playing house, he fondled her crotch, she testified.
She told her father and stepmother that summer.
After her daughter disclosed the abuse, Sterling Police recorded a phone conversation between the girl’s mother and Stone; Whiteside County Assistant State’s Attorney Terry Costello played the tape Wednesday.
During the call, she asked Stone about her daughters allegations. Stone denied touching the girl and said, “If I did it, it was probably an accident.”
He was arrested in May 2007, 8 months later.
Stone testified that 6 months before the girl made the allegations, she became moodier and their relationship became strained. He acknowledged the phone incident, but said the two girls began tickling him and he tried to fend them off.
When Costello asked why the girl hit him on the head, he said, “That’s what I’d like to know.”
He denied ever touching her in a sexual way.
Attorneys were expected to give closing arguments this morning, then the jurors were to begin deliberations.
Stone faces up to 7 years in prison on each count if convicted.
In 1995, he was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a boy younger than 13, and sentenced to 4 years in prison and 4 years probation.
