A 19-year-old was sentenced to decades behind bars after pleading guilty Monday to the August sexual assault and attempted murder of a teen girl who was 16 at the time, officials said.
Stephon Harshaw, of Dixmoor, took a plea deal in which the state dropped half of the four felony charges originally levied against him in exchange for his guilty plea to the charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and attempted murder of a girl he approached Aug. 26, 2014, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Judge Kenneth Wadas on Monday sentenced Harshaw to 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections system and he’ll be required to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence, officials said.
It wasn’t immediately clear when he would be transferred from Cook County Jail to a prison, or in which prison he’ll be serving his time, Simonton said.
Harshaw is accused of striking up a conversation with the teenage girl, whose cellphone was missing at the time. He offered to help her find it but instead lured her to the 100 block of East 117th Place, where he began assaulting her.
The teen is accused of sexually assaulting the teenage girl and choking her, causing her to lose consciousness, Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Hain said in 2014.
Harshaw continued to assault her, and she regained consciousness when he began cutting her neck with a knife, Hain said. He stabbed her multiple times in the chest, and she screamed out in pain before losing consciousness again, Hain said.
Later, a witness at a bus stop called police when he or she saw the girl walking down the street, covered in blood, Hain said in court.
The teenager first was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and later to UIC Medical Center, where she was treated for the four stab wounds to the chest, one of which punctured her lung. She also suffered slash wounds across her neck from ear to ear, Hain said.
