Harvard man gets 4 years for molesting girl
By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI - jduchnowski@nwherald.com
WOODSTOCK – A 40-year-old Harvard man convicted of twice molesting a pre-teen family member was sentenced to four years in prison Monday.
Robert L. Benson was convicted in May of aggravated criminal sexual abuse after a three-day trial.
Authorities said Benson molested the girl in May 2006 and March 2007, but when police initially asked him about it, he said he did not remember much from the period when he was drinking heavily in 2006, so if she said he molested her, he did.
In a prepared statement, the victim said Benson’s abuse had given her nightmares and had prevented her from trusting males or allowing herself to be physically close to them.
She also said she had been worried that her younger sister would be abused, too.
Benson still faces a felony charge of harassing a witness for allegedly communicating with the victim through a letter in November after his arrest. That case is set for trial July 27.
Prosecutors asked Judge Joseph Condon to give Benson the maximum seven-year sentence, arguing that Benson was a self-absorbed man who previously had been sent to prison twice after violating probation for other felony convictions.
“He has been given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself in the past and has failed,” said McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Philip Hiscock.
Defense attorney Colin MacMeekin asked for the three-year prison minimum. He said Benson’s felony convictions were for obstructing justice and aggravated driving on a revoked license – relatively minor, nonviolent felonies.
Benson declined to speak on his own behalf, but a leader in a Christian 12-step program that meets in the jail said Benson has been attending the weekly program for about nine months. Recently, Benson has assumed a leadership role in some of the program’s break-out groups, family therapist Michael Allen said.
“He seemed self-motivated to be in the program,” Allen said.
