A Waukegan man was ordered detained until trial on accusations that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a Lake County victim from Honduras for nearly one year.
Fredy E. Hernandez, 46, of Waukegan, is charged with 10 Class 1 felony counts of criminal sexual assault, 12 Class 4 felony counts of criminal sex abuse, one Class 2 felony count of attempted criminal sexual assault and three counts for failing to register as a sex offender in Waukegan.
All the charges of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, and sex abuse cases alleged Hernandez forced himself on the victim between Sept. 1, 2022, and Aug. 2023, court records show. The failing to register charge is for not registering as a sex offender in Illinois as required since 2007, prosecutors said.
Defense attorneys argued in court that the alleged abuse between Hernandez and the victim was consensual as part of a year-long affair that ended badly.
Lake County Assistant States Attorney Kyle Doyle said during Hernandez’s detention hearing in front of Lake County Circuit Court Judge Michael Nerheim on May 29 that Hernandez and the victim are both from Honduras, and the Waukegan offender assisted the victim in coming to the United States in 2022.
Doyle said Hernandez gave the victim a place to live after coming to Lake County and gave her a job at his roofing company.
Starting in September 2022, Hernandez began taking the victim to a Wadsworth motel room, where he gave her alcohol and repeatedly forced himself on her, Doyle said.
Following the alleged attacks, Hernandez would threaten to harm the victim’s family in Honduras if she told anyone about the attacks, Doyle said.
“The defendant’s response [to the victim] was you have to think about it, you have a daughter, you have to think,” Doyle said. “These statements are consistent with the threats he had made during her time of living there that he could go after her daughter in Honduras.”
The victim moved out of Hernandez’s house in August 2023, Doyle said, when the attacks stopped.
Before moving out, though, the victim began audio recording statements Hernandez made to her regarding the sexual assaults, Doyle said. Those recordings have been turned over to the state’s attorney’s office.
On the recordings, Hernandez repeatedly threatened the victim and threatened to harm the victim’s daughter in Honduras, Doyle said.
“At one point, he tells her a story in August while she’s recording the conversations, that he paid to have a man killed in Honduras because he [the Honduras victim] became a problem to him,” Doyle said. “He told the victim to not become a problem to him.”
Hernandez was convicted in 2007 of sex crimes, requiring him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Doyle said Hernandez failed to register as a sex offender since 2007 because he has been using the alias of Freddy Sanchez. In addition, he often left the country or state, living in either Wisconsin or Honduras.
Doyle added that Hernandez is also under federal investigation for sex trafficking four other victims.
Public Defender Gregg Wolpoff said Hernandez does not deny having an affair with the victim, but said the sexual encounters were consensual.
He added the victim tried to blackmail him by threatening to tell his wife and family about the affair.
“What happened was an affair,” Wolpoff said. “It was consensual and he’s not denying that.”
Nerheim ordered Hernandez held due to the evidence presented regarding the alleged sexual assaults, as well as the threats Hernandez made against the victim’s family in Honduras.
Nerheim also said he chose to detain Hernandez because he’s a flight risk due to the time he spent living under an alias and traveling to Wisconsin and Honduras.
“The repeated conduct, the threats, the manipulation, and the threats against the victims here and in Honduras, all show he poses a real and present threat against her,” Nerheim said. “There are no conditions I can impose that would mitigate the risk.”
Hernandez is due back in court on June 25.