A local man will spend the next decade in the Illinois Department of Corrections after pleading guilty to predatory criminal sexual assault of a child in Morgan County court today.
Twenty-seven year old Anthony Garcia, of the 100 block of Spaulding, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for predatory criminal sexual assault of a child. Garcia had been charged with four counts, but after pleading guilty to one count, the other three counts were waived. Each of the four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child could have put Garcia in prison for between 6 and 60 years.
Morgan County State’s Attorney Gray Noll says the two sides reached a plea agreement in which Garcia plead guilty to one count while the other three were dropped. He explains Garcia’s sentencing.
“(Garcia) was sentenced to ten years in the Department of Corrections, followed by a three-year to life mandatory supervised release, or parole. That ten years will be at 85 percent truth in sentencing, which means the defendant will be mandated to serve at least eight and a half years of the ten-year sentence. He will then be on parole for a minimum of three years to a maximum of the rest of his life,” Noll explains.
Garcia was first taken into custody following his arrest on March 27th of this year and originally faced four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault to a victim under the age of 13. According to Noll, the Jacksonville Police Department had been performing an investigation into Garcia for several months prior to his arrest. According to previous reports by WLDS/WEAI News, the mother of the allegedly two juveniles under the age of 13 was apparently informed by her two children, who both reportedly knew Garcia, that they had both been sexually victimized by him. The mother of the victims then made a call to law enforcement officials, who began their investigation.
However, as far as the court documents, Noll says information regarding the victim, or whether or not the victim was known to Garcia, is rather limited.
“The information that was contained in the charging document that the defendant ultimately plead guilty to simply indicated that an individual whose initials were “C.P.” and who was under the age of 13 was the victim in the case. The information contained in the charging document didn’t list any information as far as ‘family member’ or anything to that effect,” says Noll.
Noll explains how law enforcement authorities first became aware of the allegations against Garcia.
“The offense occurred in 2016, however, the charge itself was not filed until 2018. The investigation, I believe, the Jacksonville Police Department first became aware of it in August of 2017. It was an investigation that, due to the nature of the offense, kind of took a while to complete. Finally an arrest was made in March of 2018,” Noll says.
Along with his ten-year sentence, Garcia will automatically be forced to register as a sex offender.As indicated by Noll, as part of the plea deal, Garcia will serve at least 85 percent of his ten-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections.