Man gets 25 years for sexual assault on disabled woman
The man who sexually assaulted a profoundly disabled woman and impregnated her was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison.
Isaiah Fields, 23, of Batavia, told Kane County Judge John Barsanti he wanted to apologize to the victim and her family.
“There is no reason or set of experiences that could justify hurting anyone in any way,” Fields said.
He pleaded guilty in January to aggravated criminal sexual assault.
Fields was a caregiver at the residences at Marklund’s Hyde Center near Geneva in August 2023. The center serves people with profound physical, developmental and intellectual disabilities.
He was responsible for bathing, dressing, toileting, feeding and other care of the victim. The 43-year-old woman has lived at the facility for about 20 years, her mother testified on Friday.
She has Rett syndrome, a neurological disorder that has made her unable to read, write, talk, stand or use her hands. She has the cognitive ability of an infant. Because of this, she could not consent to sexual activity, prosecutors said, nor could she fight off her attacker or tell anybody about it.
In April 2024, the woman was taken to a hospital for liver and gallbladder tests. It was discovered she was between 31 and 35 weeks pregnant and had preeclampsia. A boy was delivered the next day by Caesarean section.
Her medical condition caused her to have a distended abdomen, which masked the pregnancy, her mother testified.
The boy was in a neonatal intensive care unit for 11 weeks but died in July 2024.
“R.J. (the baby) didn't live long in this world. But simply by coming into this world, he did justice for his mother,” prosecutor Matthew Rodgers said Friday.
DNA from the baby was compared to three male Marklund workers and matched to Fields. Without her being impregnated, no one may have ever known she was assaulted, Rodgers said.
Fields could have received as little as six or as many as 30 years in prison.
Fields told Barsanti “by no means am I asking for a pass,” but also explained he may have been affected by a childhood of trauma, drug use, sexual abuse and inappropriate sexualization.
Fields must serve at least 85% of the sentence before being eligible for parole.
Fields also pleaded guilty in January to criminal sexual abuse for a 2023 attack on a woman at a home in Aurora. He touched the breasts of the woman while she was sleeping on a couch. He was sentenced to one year in prison in that case.
Marklund provides residential care and educational services to profoundly disabled children and adults. Besides the Hyde Center, it has facilities in Bloomingdale and Elgin.
“We are satisfied to see justice served, and believe that we can all have a measure of closure to this evil act at long last,” Gil Fonger, Marklund’s CEO, said in a news release after the sentencing.