CHICAGO — Police said they caught a 19-year-old man who sexually assaulted a 56-year-old woman in her car at gunpoint before robbing her South Loop home in January.
Deontae M. Latham, of the 900 block of 5th Avenue in Rockford, was charged with aggravated sexual assault with a weapon, home invasion with a weapon and two counts of armed robbery, cops said.
Police said Latham went up to the woman as she sat in a car outside her home in the 1400 block of South Clark Street about 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 9.
Latham first asked the woman for directions, but then pulled out a gun, ordered the woman to open her door, forced her into the back seat of the car and then sexually assaulted her, Assistant State's Attorney Joell Zahr said in bond court Tuesday afternoon, where his bail was set at $2 million.
Latham then took cash from the woman's purse before opening the woman's garage with the remote opener, Zahr said. As he entered the garage, the woman hit the panic button on her key ring to activate her home alarm system, and then ran down the street to call 911 and hide, Zahr said.
The woman's 54-year-old husband went into the garage when he heard the alarm, and Latham pointed the gun at the man and demanded money before forcing him into a closet inside the home, Zahr said.
Zahr said the couple's children, ages 17 and 19, were in the home at the time of the crimes.
Latham fled before police arrived, but left behind a cellphone in the woman's car that police traced to the victim of a home invasion in Rockford. DNA collected from the phone and elsewhere matched Latham, Zahr said.
