Man Sentenced in Girl X Rape Case
By Mike Robinson, Associated Press Writer
Originally published by The Associated Press, July 2, 2001
CHICAGO (AP) — A man was sentenced to 120 years in prison Monday—the maximum—for a sex attack that left a 9-year-old child known as Girl X blind, mute and crippled.
"I do not believe that even this sentence is enough for the acts of this defendant, but the law limits the sentence that I can impose,'' Judge Joseph Urso told Patrick Sykes, a 29-year-old convicted sex offender.
Prosecutors said that in 1997, Sykes lured a girl into an apartment at the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project, sexually assaulted her, poured roach spray down her throat, beat her and left her for dead in a dirty stairwell. The girl became known in the Chicago media as Girl X.
Before the sentences was imposed, Sykes took the witness stand and declared: "No matter how much time I get in this courtroom today, I will still say it is not me. … I am innocent.''
Girl X testified this spring during Sykes' trial, using head movements to answer questions. She said a man she had often seen in her apartment building offered her a banana, luring her into an apartment, then pulled a knife on her.
On Monday, a prosecutor read a statement initialed by Girl X, now 14 and in a wheelchair, in which she said: "I am glad he is going to jail because he was wrong for doing this to me.''
She also said that before the attack, she liked to dance and run around. "I miss walking and talking and playing around and seeing,'' the statement read. "I can't use my hands. I miss using my hands.''
At the time of the attack, Sykes, an unemployed ex-convict, was living in the apartment building with a girlfriend. He denied being the attacker, saying that he had never even seen Girl X until she testified against him.
Police picked up Sykes and questioned him for three days. He was charged after signing what his interrogators said was a confession.
He denied having confessed and said he did not know what he was signing because he was coming out of an epileptic seizure when the paper written in longhand by a prosecutor was placed in front of him.
Sykes had served time in prison for attacking a 17-year-old girl at knifepoint in a hallway, robbing her and exposing himself.
