CHICAGO – A man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for luring a woman out of Chicago’s Greyhound bus station and sexually assaulting her at a nearby homeless camp.
Kenneth Horner, 45, pleaded guilty to criminal sexual abuse causing bodily harm and a lesser charge of attempted aggravated kidnapping causing bodily harm, according to Judge Mary Brosnahan, according to court records. Brosnahan ordered him to submit his DNA to a law enforcement database and register as a sex offender for life.
Horner was riding a Divvy bicycle when he stopped to talk to a 38-year-old woman who had just arrived at the bus depot at 630 West Harrison around 7:45 a.m. on July 6, 2019. He struck up a conversation with her and offered to help her find a place to stay in Chicago.
Prosecutors said he led the woman to a homeless camp in the 400 block of South Desplaines and sexually assaulted her. Horner threatened to hurt the woman and punched her repeatedly, causing injuries that resulted in significant blood loss.
After the attack, Horner took the woman back to the bus station and told her to explain her injuries by claiming she had fallen, officials said.
The woman had to undergo emergency surgery.
Someone working at the bus station saw a community alert about the attack and stopped Horner at the terminal the day after the attack. The employee took down information from Horner’s ID and then passed it on to the police. Police arrested him the next day, about two blocks from the camp.
His sentence will be offset by 2,048 days of credit he has earned by serving time in prison since 2019 and participating in inmate programs. The Illinois Department of Corrections has not announced his expected release date.
Horner has been jailed four more times: for supplying narcotics in 1999, destroying evidence and possessing a knife with intent in 2016, and possessing a firearm as a felon in 2018.
