A former fence builder from Crystal Lake got the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison Monday for the aggravated criminal sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl.
Charles Flowers, 54, was sentenced by McHenry County Circuit Judge Susan Fayette Hutchinson after pleading guilty to molesting the girl in 1991.
The crime occurred seven years after Flowers was sentenced to four years in prison for taking indecent liberties with a 13-year-old girl.
In a third incident, he was acquitted in 1986 of aggravated criminal sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl.
“I don’t believe that I can in good conscience allow you to have contact with the youthful members of our society,” said Hutchinson in pronouncing sentence. “The appropriate sentence is the maximum.”
Hutchinson also ordered Flowers, who fled to the Longview, Tex., area after the 1991 warrant was issued, to undergo psychological counseling in prison to overcome his pedophilia.
Although Hutchinson gave Flowers the normal maximum, she turned down a request from Assistant State’s Atty. Dolores Duffy that Flowers be sentenced to as much as 60 years as a repeat sex offender.
“Mr. Flowers caused devastating psychological damage on his victim that may never heal,” Duffy argued.
