April 18--A Northwest Side man has received to 18 years in prison for sexually assaulting a relative who was 8 years old when the attacks began in 2007, according to prosecutors and court records.
Rapheal Johnson, who was convicted last month of aggravated criminal sexual assault in the case, attacked the victim during sleepovers at his home, Cook County prosecutors said in a news release Friday. Johnson, 24, was sentenced in a hearing late Thursday before Judge William Lacy.
The assaults took place over several years, prosecutors said. Johnson waited until others at his home went to sleep, then forced the victim to perform sex acts, prosecutors said.
Johnson, who court records show most recently lived on West Montana Street in the Kelvyn Park neighborhood, already had been convicted and sentenced to probation in 2012 in the sexual abuse of another relative, who was 11 years old when the abuse took place in 2011. Johnson was required to register as a sexual predator after that conviction.
A year after the 2012 conviction, taped conversations at Cook County Jail indicated that Johnson, who previously lived in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood, had assaulted the 8-year-old starting as early as 2007, prosecutors said.
