Monday, October 27, 2008 11:07 PM CDT
Jury finds Bonnstetter not guilty
EIU associate athletic director was accused of entering woman's home
By the JG/T-C
editorial@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — He showed no reaction when the jury’s decision was announced Monday, but Mark Bonnstetter had trouble finding the words to describe his feelings afterward.
After about three hours of deliberation, the seven-woman, five-man jury acquitted the Eastern Illinois University associate athletic director of all charges in a case that accused him of entering a neighbor woman’s house and trying to fondle her.
Later, Bonnstetter took several moments to compose his thoughts before describing his relief at the jury’s decision.
“I am glad this is over and I can go be with my family again,” he said. “That’s the only thing that matters.”
Defense attorney Raipher Pellegrino credited sleep expert Rosaline Cartwright’s testimony during the five-day trial with helping to show the jury that Bonnstetter could have been sleepwalking when he entered the now 20-year-old woman’s house on Nov. 25, 2006.
That meant he couldn’t have had the intent needed to commit any crime, according to the defense attorney.
“I think the truth came through,” Pellegrino said.
The woman testified that she first woke when she felt someone touching her under her pajama pants, and her boyfriend, who was in the bedroom with her, soon discovered Bonnstetter on the floor of the room.
Bonnstetter later told a police officer he went into the home to check on things because the door was open and lights were on, then during his own trial testimony said he actually remembered little before waking in the bedroom after he was discovered there.
Asked after the verdict what might have happened with his job had he been convicted, Bonnstetter said EIU has been “very supportive” of him during the case, but added, “I couldn’t have survived a conviction.”
Bonnstetter, 40, of 20 Woodfield Lane, Charleston, was charged with trespassing for allegedly entering the woman’s house without permission when he knew or should have known someone was there. The jury had the option of finding him guilty of a less-serious charge that alleged only that he entered but that he didn’t know anyone was home, but jurors didn’t find him guilty of that offense, either.
Other charges in the case were residential burglary, which accused Bonnstetter of entering the house planning to commit another crime, and attempted criminal sexual abuse for allegedly taking a “substantial step” toward fondling the woman. Prison time would have been required with a conviction on the burglary charge.
The woman was in the courtroom at the time the jury’s verdict was announced. She appeared to be on the verge of tears but otherwise showed no other reaction, and left the courthouse before she could be asked if she wished to comment on the outcome.
Assistant State’s Attorney Mick McAvoy, who prosecuted, admitted after the verdict that the case was complicated and said the jury “could have based its decision on any number of issues.”
During his closing arguments to the jury, McAvoy noted that family members testified at the trial about Bonnstetter’s history of sleepwalking and said the prosecution had no contention against that. However, their descriptions of Bonnstetter not responding when spoken to and having no memory of the incident later contrasted with how the woman said he recognized her and tried to identify himself and how he was able to give an account to police, he added.
“What those people saw could hardly be farther from what happened on Nov. 25, 2006,” McAvoy said.
He also noted that Bonnstetter told a police officer that he didn’t go to the house’s basement before entering the bedroom, something the sleeping woman and boyfriend couldn’t have known. He said that eliminated the possibility that Bonnstetter remembered that from “prompting,” the way he said he can sometime remember something he does while sleepwalking if someone reminds him of it.
“He knew something no one else knew,” McAvoy said. “These actions are not the action of someone who’s sleepwalking.”
In his argument to the jury, Pellegrino said Bonnstetter made a “genuine effort to try to explain what happened,” but the real explanation was Cartwright’s conclusion. What Bonnstetter was accused of doing was totally contrary to his normal actions, he said.
“This bizarre and illogical behavior can only start to be understood by a sleepwalking incident,” Pellegrino said.
He also questioned the woman’s story, as she said she walked Bonnstetter out of the house herself, instead of having her boyfriend do it, and it wasn’t until the next morning that she said anything to her boyfriend about being touched.
“This was a woman who felt she was violated and she doesn’t even raise it,” he said.
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
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85CHSGrad wrote on Oct 27, 2008 7:09 PM: