SPRINGFIELD – A confession in a criminal case must be backed up by independent evidence, but that evidence doesn't need to match the confession detail for detail, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

A unanimous court upheld the predatory criminal sexual assault conviction of a Cook County man whose admission, which he later retracted but which was presented to the jury, told a more serious story than that related by the then-8-year-old victim.

Jason Lara confessed to digitally penetrating the genitalia of the girl, whom his mother was babysitting, on two occasions in 2005, when he was 19. But the victim testified that Lara had only touched her on the surface.