Ex-Cop Sentenced To 440 Years For Rapes

"I'm Innocent," Former Illinois Police Sergeant Tells Judge In Front Of Victims

(AP)  Sarah Gliege remembers far too much about the January night she was raped.

She remembers the gun on her chest, pointed toward her head. She remembers the realization that, months from her wedding and just after finding out she was pregnant, she might be killed.

And she remembers thinking she might save herself if she just gave in.

"No one should have to beg another person for his or her life," Gliege said Tuesday before Jeffrey Pelo, the man convicted of the 2005 rape, was sentenced to 440 years in prison. "It's a soul-crushing experience."

Judge Robert Freitag sentenced Pelo, a former Bloomington police sergeant, for the rapes of Gliege and three other women between 2002 and 2005 and the stalking of a fifth woman.

Gliege and another victim, Kristy Mills, read statements Tuesday before sentencing. They asked reporters to use their names to emphasize they aren't ashamed of what happened to them. Many news media outlets, including The Associated Press, typically withhold sexual assault victims' names.

Pelo, 43, slouched forward in his chair but otherwise didn't react as Freitag issued the sentence.

"You literally went from a protector of our community to a plague on our community," the judge told Pelo after explaining an array of sentence enhancements that added decades to his prison term. "It is necessary to impose a sentence that will ensure that the defendant will never again be free."

Pelo uttered four barely audible words when Freitag asked him if he had anything to say.

"I'm innocent," Pelo said in his only statement during the trial. "That's all."

His attorney, Michael Rosenblat, said he plans to appeal the verdict. Freitag earlier Tuesday rejected a defense motion for a new trial.

Pelo's wife offered the court a four-page handwritten letter in support of her husband. In it, she called him "the most loving, caring, responsible, respectable and most decent person I have ever known."

Sitting just a few feet from Pelo, Mills and Gliege talked about how the sentence would help their ongoing efforts to piece their lives back together, and the no-winners nature of the case.

"There's relief - I know he's not going to be out there," Mills said. "There's sadness, too. (Pelo's) kids have lost their father now."

Jurors deliberated for parts of three days in June before finding the 17-year police veteran guilty on 35 counts, including 25 counts of aggravated sexual assault.

They convicted him without physical evidence linking him to the crimes. But prosecutors used dozens of witnesses and evidence found in Pelo's home to portray him as a man obsessed with violent pornography who paradoxically wanted his victims to like him. They also said his police computer login was used to research rape victims before the attacks.

Pelo has been jailed since his arrest outside a woman's home. Another Bloomington officer spotted him late on June 11, 2006, after the woman reported a prowler.

Pelo claimed he was shopping for a home for his mother-in-law. His wife, Rickilee Pelo, backed up that claim, saying her husband often kept strange hours after working night shifts for years.

Pelo initially faced burglary and stalking charges, but over the next month three of the four rape victims identified him from photos as their attacker. Two of them also identified his voice as that of the man who raped them.

Gliege, who appeared confident during testimony earlier this summer, said Tuesday that it was a facade.

In her statement, she said she feared being alone, was often unmotivated and depressed and found it difficult to work. Gliege lost the child she was carrying when she was raped.

She and her husband moved to Chicago not long after the attack, she said, but she made no friends there, and they moved back to Bloomington this week.

"No one knows me," she read through tears. "I feel like a fake, and everyone feels sorry for me or uncomfortable around me."

[inmo-2009]

nincomp - WHAT IN THE HECK did you say? Did you even type that she was raped becasue she was pregnant before marriage. How can you compare premartial *** with a rape - that resulted ina convicted rapist?
You are an idiot - plain and simplke this is not the 1950s it is 2008. Go crawl back in your hole and watch Leave it to Beaver

[zucchiniman]

This fella Pelo may have had some aggression issues.

[toldyouso12]

he likely use a condom . . . that would explain no dna evidence.

Posted by whatsup49 at 11:59 AM : Aug 13, 2008


Not good enough. The human body routinely sheds skin cells all day long, the abrasions of him pounding another person, a pubic hair, or even if the woman had thought to retain the clothing--his sweat or even a scratch of his arm would have provided evidence--also his saliva. We can almost guarantee that at any arduous scene, at least one pubic hair will fall.

[toldyouso12]

Ex-cops in prison provides great entertainment for the inmates. I''''m sure you will be treated with the same respect that they gave Jeffery Dahlmer.
Enjoy your stay.

Posted by Questionnews at 04:38 PM : Aug 13, 2008


Ex cops in prison are usually placed in protective custody or solitary confinement, they are not released to the general population for fear of reprisals.

[deacon20081]

Why would the court system waste the tax payers money.. 440 yrs.. no one would live that long.. So why not kill him..
Posted by meanbiker
-----------------------------------------------
Care to squeaze off that killing round there sport?
Do ya likes needles? Wanna pull that 10,000 Volt Switch, Release those old time Gas pellets?

Justice with Tyrone in his cell is a longer lasting and more suitable end for him. He will probably take the cowards way out and hang himself with his dirty shorts.

[deacon20081]

It says that she was pregnant when she was raped and that was before her marriage. So this must be her second rape, first by choice and the next by force.
Posted by nincomp at 07:40 PM : Aug 13, 2008

Rape by choice? That defies logic. I am just guessing here but does nincomp = nincompoop per chance as in goofy?

I hope the jerk spends every day of that sentence as a pleasure slave to TYRONE in the pen.

[nincomp]

It says that she was pregnant when she was raped and that was before her marriage. So this must be her second rape, first by choice and the next by force.

[mainemade]

I''m all for the Lorena Bobbit theory. If they use it in a crime, they lose it! Cut it off! Can''t rape someone with something they don''t have any more!

[mo005]

I think the turdbas should have a red hot poker shoved up the sunshine whole. In front of news cameras.

[besttyper]

What a dumb-sh*t system we have here in the USA where a person can be sent to prison for 440 years. Plain stupid. Should have been death or life without parole. But to state 440 years proves that we are a lost cause.
Posted by cjw3cma at 02:18 PM : Aug 13, 2008

I''m not completely sure, but I seem to remember when working at a newspaper learning that in order to be sentenced to "life without parole" you have to commit a felony while committing a crime, like burglary and rape. If he was convicted of rape only, the 440 years would ensure he never gets out. In Arkansas, a rapist has to serve 70% of their sentence before they are eligible for parole -- same as a drug manufacturer.

[questionnews]

Ex-cops in prison provides great entertainment for the inmates. I''m sure you will be treated with the same respect that they gave Jeffery Dahlmer.
Enjoy your stay.

[questionnews]

Ex-cops in prison provides great entertainment for the inmates. I''m sure you will be treated with the same respect that they gave Jeffery Dahlmer.
Enjoy your stay.

[meanbiker]

Why would the court system waste the tax payers money.. 440 yrs.. no one would live that long.. So why not kill him..

[no2zeebas]

Give the man a break because he was not getting nookie at home and he just wanted what a man is deserving of after a ahrd days work. Women should quit being such wos''''es and give it up.

Posted by dmotte at 03:32 PM : Aug 13, 2008

I would like to see you raped daily while in prison as well...

[honestabe8]

That being said, I hope this pig is the belle of the ball in prison.

[honestabe8]

I did not see any mention of his political affiliation. I suppose that means any speculation is just to take a shot at those who feel differently. Partisanship is a plague on our country.

[no2zeebas]

I hope the filthy maggot is raped daily in prison...

[jackp32]

Is he eligible for parole in 6 mos?

[cjw3cma]

What a dumb-sh*t system we have here in the USA where a person can be sent to prison for 440 years. Plain stupid. Should have been death or life without parole. But to state 440 years proves that we are a lost cause.

[guadalcanal3]

Voltaire777...Actually he is a Democrat.