(This story has been corrected. A previous version indicated that the attorney who represented Jerad Peoples at trial was the same attorney who represented Peoples on appeal at the Fifth District. A previous version also incorrectly identified attorney Clyde Kuehn as leader of the Belleville firm Kuehn, Beasley and Young. The Record apologizes for these reporting errors).
FIFTH DISTRICT – While Supreme Court candidate Judy Cates accuses opponent David Overstreet of releasing a child rapist, her campaign takes money from the firm that won his release.
Kuehn, Beasley and Young of Belleville contributed $1,000 to Cates’s campaign on Oct. 13.
Attorney Derek Siegel of Kuehn’s firm represented Jerad Peoples of Centralia at the Fifth District appellate court, which reversed his child rape conviction in June.
Overstreet and two other judges found Marion County Circuit Judge Mark Stedelin improperly held trial with Peoples absent.
They found Peoples didn’t miss his trial date willfully but missed it because he nearly took his life and spent the day in a hospital.
After the judges ordered a second trial, Peoples posted bond and left Big Muddy prison as a suspect rather than a convict.
Cates nevertheless calls him a child rapist, and so does an independent group by name of Clean Courts Committee.
On Wednesday, Cates responded to advertising paid for by Overstreet supporters countering the negative attacks on his record.
“Judge Overstreet’s dark money attack ads are a $2 million dollar ‘justice for sale’ distraction to drown out a victim’s mother who has spoken out against Overstreet’s release of a child molester who terrorized this mother and her daughter,” Cates said in a release.
“The victim’s mother came forward to talk about how she and her daughter were failed by Judge Overstreet, who released the predator that sexually assaulted her 6-year old daughter. Instead of responding to the victim’s statements, Judge Overstreet spends $2 million dollars to spread lies throughout Southern Illinois to drown out a victim’s voice. I am calling for Overstreet to resign from the Illinois Judge’s Association for these attack ads. He has no integrity.”
Cates also said Overstreet ads connect her to House Speaker Michael Madigan.
“Mike Madigan has not given me anything in this race, compared to the $2 million dollars Overstreet has accepted from the GOP dark PAC,” Cates said. “This child molester is back in our communities in Southern Illinois, not registered as a sex offender, and continues to put the victim and her mother at risk. Overstreet should resign, along with Mike Madigan."
On Oct. 27, anonymous persons started a Justice for LK website, showing Peoples and Overstreet with titles of "Child Rapist" and "Judge Who Let Him Go."
The website provided only an email address, and no such group "Justice for LK" has registered with the state election board as of Oct. 27.
According to the record in the Jerad Peoples case, in 2015, Marion County prosecutors charged him with four counts of predatory sexual assault on a 6-year old girl.
In 2017, he waived his right to a jury in exchange for dismissing three counts.
The fourth count alleged his penis came into contact with L.K.’s mouth between October 2014 and January 2015.
At a hearing a day before trial in August 2017, Peoples moved to continue because he wanted to hire a new attorney.
Peoples told Stedelin he and his attorney met a day earlier and he felt his attorney pressured him and had lost confidence in his innocence.
Peoples said he wrote questions, called his attorney, and told him he couldn’t make a life altering decision until he had answers.
He said his attorney couldn’t answer some questions, leaving him to believe his attorney wasn’t prepared for trial.
His attorney moved to withdraw, and Stedelin denied it.
Stedelin asked Peoples if he understood when he was due back in court, and Peoples said he understood.
Next morning, Peoples' attorney told Stedelin he didn’t know where Peoples was.
He moved again to continue the trial and grant leave to withdraw, but the state objected and Stedelin denied the motions.
L.K., nine years old at that point, testified that Peoples touched her bad spot with his hand more than once.
Stephanie Brooks testified that at a sleepover in her home, L.K. said Peoples did bad things to her.
She said she and another mother, Kayla Booth, called L.K.’s mother and Department of Children and Family Services.
On cross examination, Booth said she was aware that Mary Tullis, a person she had known 13 years, said she and Booth told L.K. to make the allegations.
Booth said she was aware that Tullis told investigators Brooks and Booth had issues with Peoples because he refused to be intimate with them.
She denied Tullis’s allegations.
Booth’s testimony on the sleepover matched the testimony of Brooks.
On cross examination Brooks denied telling L.K. what words to use.
She admitted she was sexually intimate with Peoples in a situation that involved L.K.’s mother and Brooks.
L.K.’s mother, Cara, testified that she and Peoples were together six years and that he was father of her son W.P, age two.
She said Peoples watched L.K. while she worked.
She said she initially had trouble believing L.K.
Forensic interviewer Tonya Arnold of Amy Center in Mount Vernon testified about specific and graphic details that L.K. provided.
Defense witness Tullis testified that Brooks told her they got Peoples really good.
She said she asked what that meant and Brooks said she and Booth devised this scheme because he refused to get one of them pregnant.
She said Brooks told her they drilled L.K. with sexual information for two days.
Peoples' attorney moved again to continue the trial, saying Peoples intended to testify.
Stedelin denied the motion, and ruled that L.K. couldn’t have been coached to make precise and detailed allegations.
He found no animus in L.K., Booth, or Brooks.
He also found Tullis wasn’t credible.
Peoples moved to vacate his conviction a week later, stating St. Mary’s Hospital admitted him at 4:50 a.m. on the trial date.
He attached records showing he told staff he ingested acetaminophen, diphenhydramine, and benzodiazepine.
At a hearing, detective Anthony Decker of the sheriff’s office said he told the judge on the morning of trial that a detective saw Peoples at the hospital.
Decker said a warrant was issued after the conviction, and the hospital confirmed that he was there.
Stedelin denied the motion, stating he was aware that Peoples was seen at St. Mary’s but that “efforts to confirm admission were unsuccessful.”
He found fear of incarceration was insufficient to establish the burden of proving severe emotional or psychological stress.
"Defendant’s failure to appear was his fault and within his control," Stedelin concluded.
In 2018, he sentenced Peoples to 35 years.
Judges there found Stedelin didn’t try hard enough to track Peoples down.
Justice Milton Wharton wrote, “Given the information the trial court received the morning of trial, the court should have engaged in additional inquiry to ascertain whether the defendant was in the hospital under guard and was unable to leave the hospital to attend his trial.
"Although members of the defendant’s family were in the courtroom and did not know the defendant’s whereabouts, the trial court did not ask a family member to find out if the defendant was in the hospital.
“When the defendant was scheduled to be present for trial, he was confined to the intensive care unit with security guards posted at his door, was receiving treatment for acetaminophen poisoning, and was not in control of his actions.
“To the extent that a defendant must establish that he was suffering from extreme stress or extreme psychological or mental illness, we find that the defendant’s medical records would support that standard."
Overstreet and Justice John Barberis concurred.