A man has been sentenced to 26 years in prison for sexually assaulting and robbing a CTA employee at gunpoint as she walked home from the Red Line on the South Side last year.
Devonte Willis, 21, pleaded guilty on Monday to aggravated criminal sexual assault with a firearm, according to a statement from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
The 24-year-old woman was walking home eastbound on the 63rd Street near the Red Line stop on the afternoon of Dec. 30, 2013 when she passed Willis, who turned around and followed her, according to prosecutors.
He pulled out a small black handgun and demanded the woman give him everything she had, prosecutors said. She gave him her purse and cell phone, and Willis told her in order to save her life, she would have to perform a sex act on him.
After multiple sexual assaults, Willis took the woman’s possessions and fled, according to prosecutors. She ran home and immediately called 911, and was taken to Saint Bernard Hospital.
The woman was able to provide a detailed description of the suspect to police, and Willis was arrested in the area of the assault just a few hours later, prosecutors said. He still had the woman’s cell phone, and DNA taken from the victim and the scene matched his.
Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced Willis, of the 6200 block of King Drive, to 26 years in prison.
