Former West Loop tanning salon owner pleads guilty in 2nd sex abuse case

Six months after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a former employee, ex-tanning salon operator Marc Winner pleaded guilty on Friday to sexual abusing a customer in 2015.

Winner was sentenced to four years in prison plus two years of supervision by Judge Carol Howard, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

The 47-year-old — who had appeared poised to head to trial before his Friday guilty plea to one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse —will begin serving that sentence once he completes the 13-year sentence handed down by Howard earlier this spring.

The latest case stemmed from an August 2015 encounter when Winner attacked a 26-year-old woman who visited his Soleil tanning salon near Madison and Carpenter streets on the Near West Side.

Prosecutors said the victim moved away from Chicago and has had trouble keeping jobs or maintaining relationships because as a result, ABC-7 reported.

Charges against Winner in the 2015 case apparently rejuvenated police investigations into several other sexual assault claims that had stalled for years, with some allegations dating as far back as 2001.

Prosecutors revived a string of older cases against Winner as new victims came forward, and by 2016, he had been charged with assaulting four women between 2009 and 2015. Three of the victims were either employees or customers at the tanning salon.

In May, Winner was convicted following a bench trial of criminal sexual abuse and sexual assault for a 2009 attack on a former employee that happened inside his apartment near the tanning salon.

He initially was arrested in that case in 2013, but charges were dismissed by a judge who found the victim’s version of events unlikely.

With good behavior, Winner is projected to complete his first sentence in December 2028, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He’s being held at the downstate Pinckneyville Correctional Center.

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