People v. Spreyne

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: EGAN
• Citation: People v. Spreyne, 628 N.E.2d 251, 256 Ill.App.3d 505 (Ill. App. 1993)
• Decision Date: 05 November 1993
• Docket Number: No. 1-88-1816,1-88-1816
• Parties: , 194 Ill.Dec. 754, 89 Ed. Law Rep. 556 The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harold SPREYNE, Defendant-Appellant.

Page 251

628 N.E.2d 251

256 Ill.App.3d 505, 194 Ill.Dec. 754,

89 Ed. Law Rep. 556

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harold SPREYNE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-88-1816.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Sixth Division.

Nov. 5, 1993.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 16, 1993.

Rita A. Fry, Office of the Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago (Pamela Pfrang, of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

Jack O'Malley, State's Atty. of Cook County, Chicago (Renee Goldfarb and Veronica X. Calderon, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

Justice EGAN delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant, Harold Spreyne, was convicted of the criminal sexual abuse of K.J. and was sentenced to probation for one year with the first 60 days to be served in the Cook County Department of Corrections. We will first consider the defendant's argument that he was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

K.J. testified that she had been employed as a Chicago Board of Education custodial worker since April, 1985. On July 29, 1987, she was assigned to summer duty at the Beale School (Beale), where she had worked for one year. Her duties included cleaning the restrooms "and things like that." Her supervisor was on vacation, and the defendant, a building engineer, was the substitute supervisor at Beale. She had never met him before. On Monday, July 27, she was scheduled to return to work from her own vacation, but she did not go to work. She initially denied calling in Monday to explain that she would not be at work; later she testified that she called the defendant Monday morning before 9:00 a.m. She also did not attend work on Tuesday; she was not sure what the proper call-in procedure was at Beale, but knew she should call before "they leave" Beale in the afternoon on the day before she would be absent. She did not call the school Monday afternoon to explain that she was not coming to work Tuesday. She did call Tuesday morning, spoke to the defendant, and told him she would call before 8:00 a.m. Wednesday if she also would be absent Wednesday. She went to work on Wednesday, although she "got there kind of late."

On Wednesday morning she was working in the school lunchroom when Rodney Wills (Wills), another custodial worker who was K.J.'s friend, told her that the engineer, the defendant, wanted to see her. She walked from the lunchroom down a flight of stairs to the basement, where the boiler room and engineer's office were located. This happened at 9:30 a.m. Summer school at Beale, which involves less students than regular school, was in session on July 29, 1987, and the students began class at 9 a.m. She did not see any students that morning nor she did she see many adults. She testified that there was a "classroom" right next to the boiler room but, to her knowledge, it was used only for "one or two" school purposes and not for actual classes.

She testified that the boiler room was about as large as the courtroom, contained two boilers, an employee time sheet table, the engineer's office and a restroom. When she entered the room, she saw the defendant, who asked if the name she signed in with was her right name. They were both standing approximately 15 feet from the door, near one of the boilers and near the time sheet table. K.J. carried into the room a garbage can she intended to clean, and she stood approximately two feet away from the defendant. He asked K.J. if she liked her custodial job. She told him that she did like her job; and he asked her if she wanted to receive payment for Monday and Tuesday, when she did not come to work. When she asked him "why did he want to do that," he told her, "Do you know you can't go anyplace else in the city of Chicago and have a good job like this?" She testified that the following then occurred:

"[The defendant] asked me was I married, and I said no, and he asked me did I drink, and I said no, and he asked me to go to a bar with him and have something to drink and I said 'I am not going anyplace with you.' And he said, 'I am going to go out and buy some beer and we will go to the back room and we will have something to drink,' and I said, 'I am not going to have anything to drink. I don't drink.' "

On redirect examination, K.J. testified that the defendant was drunk and smelled of alcohol.

K.J. turned to leave the room to clean the garbage can when the defendant "stopped her"; he "approached" her, "touched [her] chest," and "started feeling on [her] breast." He "stopped" her by putting his hands on her breast. She testified that while the defendant did this, "[h]e said he was going to have [her]." She told him to leave her alone, turned to go upstairs, and felt the defendant grab her right arm. Next, he "grabbed [her] hands * * * and was pressing against [her] with his penis, and had [her] hands." She "was trying to get away" from the defendant and "got loose" but the defendant "pushed [her] and [her] back was against the wall." She described the defendant's actions as being "just all over [her]." He did not scratch or bruise her, but her wrists were sore. Eventually, she broke away and ran upstairs. She did not scream at any time, but while in the boiler room she repeatedly told the defendant to stay away from her, and she was "terrified" and crying when she ran up the stairs.

K.J. testified that a button was broken off her shirt "during the struggle," and she had to "have a chain in the top button" because it was broken by the defendant. She also testified that her clothes were "messed up" after the incident.

When K.J. ran from the boiler room, she did not see any children or adults. She ran past the school office and down the hall, where she saw Wills. She told Wills that the defendant tried to rape her, and Wills tried to calm her and took her into a room where she stayed with him until she calmed herself. She left the room and went to the office, where she told her supervisor's secretary and other office staff that the defendant "tried to rape" her. Though the secretary asked her not to call the police, K.J. used the office phone to call the police and reported the incident as an attempted rape. After she called the police, she saw another friend, Willie Flowers (Flowers), who worked as a security guard at Beale. He asked her what happened, and she told him "the engineer just attacked me downstairs." After hearing this, Flowers left the office. The police arrived.

Rodney Wills testified that he had known K.J. for some time. He also knew the defendant. At approximately 8 a.m. on July 29, 1987, the defendant asked Wills to "go out and buy beer for him." Wills bought Old Milwaukee beer, took it to the defendant in the boiler room, and left the basement. Then Wills followed the defendant's instructions and told K.J. to go downstairs and meet with the defendant. Shortly thereafter, K.J. ran into a room where Wills was working. She was crying and upset, but had no visible scratches or bruises. Her clothing was "wrinkled or disheveled," and K.J. told Wills that the defendant tried to rape her. K.J. asked Wills to stay with her, and the police were called. Wills later testified in rebuttal that after talking to K.J., he went to the boiler room and saw the defendant "drinking two Budweisers, one in each hand."

Willie Flowers testified that he saw K.J. at approximately 9:30 a.m. and that "she looked upset." She told him that the defendant had attacked her and tried to rape her.

The defendant was 49 years-old at the time of the incident; he was approximately 6'1"' tall and weighed approximately 170 pounds. He testified that he was assigned to Beale on Monday and that part of his duties involved monitoring and submitting employee time records to the payroll department. He testified that K.J. never called to report her Monday and Tuesday absences. When he noticed that K.J. had signed in on Wednesday morning, he asked Wills to tell K.J. to come to the boiler room.

When K.J. came downstairs, the defendant told her that he had "heard her work was good," despite the fact that "he had also heard some bad things about her." He told K.J. that she was wrong not to call about her absences, and that if she had missed three days in a row, he would have been forced to call a substitute and she would have been assigned to another school. He testified that he had only this brief conversation with K.J. before she left. He did not touch K.J., "did not ask her for a date or a drink after work," and did not offer her a drink at school. He did not see anyone else that morning and stayed in the boiler room working until the police arrived. He did not drink any alcohol on that day. He drank only on special occasions and the last time had been at a wedding.

The defendant maintains that the State failed to prove the elements of the offense. The statute provides that criminal sexual abuse occurs when the defendant makes intentional or knowing sexual contact by the use of force or threat of force. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 38, par. 12-15(a)(1).) The defendant does not argue that the evidence does not show sexual contact or the use of force. His argument, rather, is that the force must precede or be simultaneous with the sexual contact and that the evidence here shows that no force occurred until after he had touched K.J.'s breast.

We have recently considered the same argument in People v. Fryer (1992), 247 Ill.App.3d 1051, 187 Ill.Dec. 786, 618 N.E.2d 377, in which we affirmed a conviction of aggravated criminal sexual assault. The defendant argued that no force was exerted against the victim until after the sexual assault. We cited People v. Colley (1990), 188 Ill.App.3d 817, 136 Ill.Dec. 126, 544 N.E.2d 812, in which the court affirmed a conviction for aggravated sexual assault, saying:

"Here, the evidence shows that the defendant stabbed the victim soon after the sexual acts were completed. Under the instant circumstances, we will not draw a bright line between...