An Illinois judge may lose his place on the bench after he reversed a defendant’s conviction for sexually attacking a sleeping girl.
Nearly two years after a high school graduation party sexual assault, a hearing with the Illinois Courts Commission started Tuesday to determine whether Adams County Judge Robert Adrian will face discipline.
According to the Chicago Tribune, 16-year-old Cameron Vaughan told her parents about the events that happened in June 2021, when she was sexually assaulted. She then recounted the attack to sexual assault nurses, Quincy police detectives, and Adams County prosecutors.
She also went through a three-day bench trial, where she was reportedly questioned, probed, and endured judgemental comments.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Drew Clinton turned 18 two weeks before sexually assaulting Vaughan. She waived her anonymity and previously told WGEM that she woke up at a friend’s home with a pillow over her face and Clinton raping her.
Clinton claimed the encounter was consensual.
“I asked him to stop multiple times and he wouldn’t. I finally got off the couch and pushed him off of me and he jumped up and just started playing video games as if nothing had happened,” she recalled.
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Clinton had a bench trial in October 2022, which resulted in Adrian convicting him of sexual assault. The charge carries a minimum sentence of four years in prison.
During Clinton’s sentencing hearing on January 3, 2022, Judge Adrian announced that Clinton would not be sent to prison and changed the verdict to not guilty. The judge said that Clinton has already spent 148 days behind bars — which he asserted was “plenty of punishment.”
“By law, the court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections,” Adrian said, according to court transcripts. “This court will not do that. That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that.”
The Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board filed the complaint against Adrian on June 17, 2022. According to the complaint, Adrian is accused of:
- Allowing Clinton to avoid serving a mandatory prison sentence by reversing the guilty verdict.
- Telling Assistant State’s Attorney Josh Jones on January 12, 2022, to leave the courtroom because Jones had “liked” a comment on a social media post that criticized the judge.
- Making false statements under oath “before the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board on April 8, 2022.”
Adrian said that the incident occurred with a teen defendant who “has no prior record, none whatsoever,” but for Vaughan, there is no excuse for allowing Clinton to evade punishment.
“I was so ready to see him finally get what he deserved,” Vaughan told the Chicago Tribune.
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[Feature Photo: Judge Robert Adrian/WGEM video screengrab; Drew Clinton/Quincy High School Football]
Additional reporting by Jacquelyn Gray
