A man promised to take a woman to a homeless shelter last weekend after meeting her at a bus station, but instead took her to a homeless encampment where he sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.
Kenneth Horner, 40, was denied bail at his initial hearing Thursday on a charge of aggravated criminal sexual assault in the attack, which allegedly happened Saturday morning at a homeless encampment under the Jane Byrne Interchange.
The 38 year-old woman had arrived earlier that morning at the Greyhound bus station at 630 W. Harrison St. and tried to find a homeless shelter to stay at, Cook County prosecutors said at the hearing. When she was unable to find accommodations, she sat down and began crying before she was approached by Horner as he rode by on a Divvy bike, prosecutors said.
Horner told her he would help find a place to stay, but instead led her west on Harrison to a table at the encampment, where he began groping her, prosecutors said. He took off her clothes as she repeatedly told him “no” and then sexually assaulted her, according to prosecutors, who also said Horner punched her legs and threatened to hurt her if she resisted.
The woman suffered injuries in the assault that led to heavy bleeding, which Horner attempted to staunch with a T-shirt, prosecutors said. He brought her back to the bus station and told her to find an employee and tell them she had fallen down.
The woman was taken to University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, where she underwent emergency surgery for her injuries and had to receive a blood transfusion due to the amount of blood she lost, prosecutors said. Evidence collected during a sexual assault examination is still being processed, prosecutors said.
The following day, after police released a community alert, an employee at the bus station briefly detained Horner and documented information from his state ID. Police used that information to run a search on Horner and the woman identified his photo in an array, prosecutors said. Video surveillance cameras at the station recorded Horner approaching the woman on the morning of the attack and leaving with her, as well as returning later, prosecutors said.
Horner, of south suburban Blue Island, was taken into custody Monday, according to police records. He was paroled in March after serving time at the East Moline Correctional Center for unlawful use of a weapon, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Prosecutor said his previous convictions also included drug violations, assault and theft.
An assistant public defender for Horner said he was married and was most recently working in the shipping and receiving department of a candy factory.
Judge Arthur Wesley Willis ordered Horner held without bail and forbid him from having contact with the woman.
“I don’t even know her,” Horner replied before being led away by a Cook County sheriff’s deputy.
The attack took place a half-mile north of the South Loop Tent City encampment, which has been the scene of at least two serious crimes this year, authorities have said. A woman reported being sexually assaulted at the encampment in April and a man was shot to death by a fellow resident of the camp during an argument over a heater in February.
The Tent City encampment is home to between 15 and 40 people at any given time, according to residents who spoke with the Sun-Times before officials cleared the encampment with bulldozers in March, temporarily displacing some residents.
The city said they tried to get many of the residents to move to homeless shelters.
