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Canal path rapist gets max sentence
Miguel Luna sentenced to 80 years for raping two women
On a Sunday morning nearly three years ago, Miguel Luna said he pedaled his bicycle along the Illinois & Michigan Canal path on the way to work a shift as a busboy at Jameson’s Pub in Joliet.
“That Sunday, I woke up, got on my bike, my heart full of joy and Christian songs,” Luna said, telling how he also planned to go to church that day.
But before he made it to work, Luna leaped from his bicycle onto a woman who was jogging on the path, then brutalized and raped her for an hour.
Luna described the woman as “something terrible waiting for me to test” his Christian strength.
Luna, 37, gave a lengthy, rambling statement at his sentencing hearing Monday afternoon, repeatedly invoking God, Jesus and forgiveness, and telling how he was raped by two older brothers when he was a child in Mexico.
He also said he was raped by a stranger who had offered him a “plastic bag full of money” in exchange for oral sex.
When Luna was finished, Will County Judge David Carlson gave him 80 years in prison, the maximum sentence he could impose.
Carlson imposed the maximum sentence despite Luna having pleaded guilty to raping the two women, calling the crimes “horrific” and “unspeakable.” The judge said looking at the person who committed such atrocious crimes was “almost surreal.”
“These were rapes of their souls,” Carlson said.
Luna had been ordered to be deported in March 2012. He raped the two women in 2015 and 2016.
Luna also sexually assaulted a third woman, a prostitute he agreed to pay $50 for sex, but then assaulted and only offered $30. She has since died.
“Based on everything here before me, you shouldn’t have been in this country,” Carlson said. “Time and time again there were contacts, and you were free, free to commit these acts.”
Carlson blamed this on “misguided political correctness” or “people who don’t believe in laws or borders. I don’t know.”
He does know he will be more vigilant about the immigration status of defendants appearing before him.
“I’m changing the way I do things in this courtroom because of you, Mr. Luna,” Carlson said.
During his statement, Luna explained that he attacked the women because he had been overcome by temptation.
“I couldn’t stop myself that morning, even though I tried with all my heart,” he said of his September 2015 attack.
“The more I think about what I have done to my victims, the more I think I’m the worst person in the world,” Luna said.
Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Fillipitch told how Luna, after he was arrested, blamed his crimes on the provocative attire of American women.
“I don’t like this country,” Fillipitch said Luna told detectives. “Everywhere you go, you see girls almost naked. Mexico is a little bit different.”
Fillipitch also told of Luna practically begging to be locked up until he dies.
“I deserve all my life in jail,” the prosecutor said Luna told detectives. “I’m not the judge, but I’m going to ask for God’s mercy.”
Carlson told him to take that up with God.
“Quite frankly, Mr. Luna, that’s between you and your God and Jesus,” said Carlson, who called the fact that “we’re going to pay to clothe and house and feed” Luna the “most perverse” aspect of the sentence.
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