States Attorney
Chicago Man Receives 12 Years in Home Invasion
WHEATON - DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph E. Birkett announced today that Gerardo Rodriguez, 22, (d.o.b. 7/7/1984) of 6210 S. Francisco, Chicago was sentenced to twelve (12) years in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) for his involvement in a September 22, 2005 incident in Oak Brook in which a woman was assaulted by knife-point while parked in the garage of her home. Rodriguez’s accomplice, Rodrigo Moreno, 21 (d.o.b. 6/7/1985) of 6441 S. Sacramento Avenue, was sentenced on September 13 to fourteen years in IDOC for his role in the assault.
At approximately 10 a.m. on September 22, 2005, the victim was in her vehicle in the garage of her home when Rodriguez and Moreno approached her. Moreno, wearing a stocking cap and armed with a knife, reached into her vehicle from the driver’s side. Rodriguez joined Moreno in the assault as the pair took the victim from her vehicle and ordered her to open the door of her home. As she was being led at knife-point to the door of her home, the victim told her assailants that she had left the keys to her home in her vehicle. When one of her assailants went to the vehicle to retrieve her keys, the victim fought off the second man and fled the scene.
“The punishment given to both Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Moreno will take both of them off the streets and unable to prey on unsuspecting victims for a significant amount of time,” commented Birkett. “Hopefully, these sentences will serve as a deterrent to others that perpetrators of this type of violent assault will pay for their actions with years behind bars.”
Judge George Bakalis sentenced Rodriguez after he entered a plea of guilty to one count of Armed Violence.
###
