Man Suspected Of Raping Teen Had Charges Dismissed In Previous Case
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Luis Alberto Pantoja is being held on $2.5 million bond after being charged with brutally raping and beating a 15-year-old girl in the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood last month.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports Pantoja has been accused of this crime before.
A woman who spoke to CBS 2 in Spanish, under the condition we not use her name says Luis Pantoja raped her niece in August. She told us her niece is still trying to recover from what she endured four months ago and how she relived that nightmare after seeing Pantoja's face on television.
A judge dismissed the charge against Pantoja in the case. The woman says her niece had only known Pantoja for two days, before pulling her into an alley on the 5400 block of West Diversey and raping her.
"They didn't take her side of the story into account. The judge believed him more. He said my niece was his girlfriend and that was a lie," she said.
The woman says had her niece's case not been thrown out, Pantoja may have not been able to rape and brutally beat a 15 year-old girl here in the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood back in December, leaving her for dead. Prosecutors say DNA and other evidence link Pantoja to the December crime.
"Shoe prints left on the scene are the same size, design and tread pattern as the defendant's boots he was wearing at the time of his arrest on January 3rd, 2014," said the prosecutor.
When asked the woman what she wants to see happen to Pantoja, she said, "That he gets a punishment, a punishment where he doesn't come out, because people like that, never change."
Pantoja faces as much as 30 years behind bars in the December case if convicted. We reached out to the judge in the August case against Pantoja she has not returned our calls for comment.