Rape trial continued to October

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PRINCETON — A Bureau County rape trial scheduled for Aug. 14 will not take place until Oct. 20.

Ricardo Louison, 46, the man charged with the April 19, 1999, rape of a 20-year-old Princeton motel clerk, was present at Tuesday afternoon’s status hearing in front of Associate Judge C.J. Hollerich.

Louison’s attorney, David Pugh of Chicago, asked the bench trial, originally scheduled to begin in Bureau County Court at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 14, be changed to a later date in October.

Pugh said he plans to file two motions, including a motion to dismiss for a different court venue and a motion to dismiss due to violation of a speedy trial. Pugh also said he does not currently have all of the evidence he needs for the defense of his client. He said he does not have the DNA laboratory result reports conducted by the Illinois State Police during the investigation.

Hollerich said the DNA lab reports were given to Louison’s original attorney, public defender Stephen Gunning, and that the reports should have been included along with other documents already given to Pugh. Hollerich said Pugh would receive the DNA reports.

Pugh also asked the state’s attorney’s office to provide evidence of the state’s efforts to obtain the person of Louison during the period from January to May 2008. This would include any correspondence between the state’s attorney’s office and the Iowa Department of Corrections, where Louison was held previously this year.

The new bench trial date is set to begin at 9 a.m. Oct. 20. A pre-trial status hearing is set for 1:15 p.m. Sept. 9.

At a July 2 hearing before Hollerich, Bureau County State’s Attorney Patrick Herrmann brought three additional charges against Louison, including the Class X felonies of attempted murder, aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery.

Louison has waived a preliminary hearing and his right to a jury trial on all four charges. He has been held at the Bureau County Jail on $250,000 bond since his April arrest.

In the 1999 case, a female motel clerk was robbed at knife point at 3 a.m. April 19 at the Comfort Inn in Princeton. The man took $169 from the cash drawer and then abducted the woman, using his knife as a weapon. He allegedly forced her into a nearby parked vehicle and sexually assaulted her before forcing her out of the car near the Utica exit on Interstate 80. After the man drove away, the woman walked to a nearby vehicle, whose driver transported her to the Illinois State Police headquarters in LaSalle.

A Bureau County grand jury indicted Louison on Jan. 11 for the Class X felony of aggravated criminal sexual assault. Louison, who was found in an Iowa Department of Corrections facility on a robbery conviction, first appeared in a Bureau County courtroom on April 23.

Staff writers Donna Barker and Barb Kromphardt contributed to this article.

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