Sept. 11--A former Chicago public relations executive convicted of sexually assaulting a woman he met on an online dating site in 2009 was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after the victim tearfully asked the judge to protect other women from him.
Ignacio Carrillo, who is awaiting trial on charges of raping another woman he met on the same dating website, was accused by prosecutors Friday of sexually assaulting a third woman last year while he was free on bail awaiting trial. No charges have been filed in that case.
"I'm angry at myself," the victim of the 2009 attack said in court Friday as she wept while reading from a prepared statement. "I'm furious that I couldn't save myself that night -- that I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't smart enough."
Prosecutors called Carrillo a "predator" and said he drugged the 38-year-old west suburban woman he was convicted of raping in a Lincoln Park hotel in 2009.
"The state says he's a danger to women and society, and it'd be hard to say that's not the case," Judge Stanley Sacks said in imposing the sentence. "He wants to lay it off on his drinking problem ... but these were pretty much planned ahead of time. It's clear he couldn't take 'no' for an answer."
Carrillo was charged in only the 2009 case after the second alleged victim went to police. Jurors took less than 2 hours in December to convict him. He faced up to 15 years in prison. He must served 85 percent of the sentence -- 8 1/2 years in prison.
After meeting on the Plenty of Fish online dating website, Carrillo took the woman to two bars on Oct. 15, 2009, and then to a Lincoln Park hotel, according to trial testimony. She remembered only some of the night's events despite drinking just a glass of wine and a single shot, leading prosecutors to suggest she had been drugged.
When she realized she was in a hotel room and tried to leave, Carrillo pulled her back inside and raped her, prosecutors alleged. A sister, alerted by text messages seeking her help, eventually found the hotel, grabbed the woman and ran as Carrillo lay "smirking" on the bed, she testified.
"I want to protect other women from him," the woman told the judge on Friday. "l want Ignacio Carrillo to know that I stayed for that first drink that night because I thought maybe inside he was a good person. I was kind, I was trusting and in the end, he took advantage."
In the 2011 case, Carrillo ordered a martini for a woman he met online and then poured something he said was olive juice inside it, prosecutors alleged. The woman testified at trial that Carrillo later raped her against the side of his Porsche convertible in a parking garage before driving her home. She went to the hospital the next day and reported being raped.
While out on bail for the two rape cases, Carrillo met a woman, now 24, at a loft in the Printer's Row neighborhood he was renting on Craigslist, the woman testified Friday. She was looking for a place to live after being kicked out of her home.
There was music playing in the loft when she went on Oct. 14 and he made her a drink, she testified. Carrillo then took her out to dinner and ordered more drinks and then told her that "I owed him," she said.
She agreed to perform a sex act on him in the elevator back up to his apartment, but when they got there he raped her, she testified.
Carrillo apologized to his 2009 victim in court before he was sentenced, saying he hoped his "grief, sorry and despair" at being in prison would console her.
"I'm embarrassed and ashamed by my behavior," he said. "I take full responsibility for my poor judgment."
But Assistant State's Attorney Tracy Senica said Carrillo was a predator who didn't care who he hurt and asked for a lengthy prison sentence.
"He doesn't care if she says no, he doesn't care if she's crying," she said. "He's so bold that he's out on bail for two criminal sexual assaults when he assaulted (the 2014 victim)."
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
