Sex Offender Beats Rap in Sex Crime Home Invasion Case

By Joseph Hosey

A registered sex offender charged with breaking into a Joliet woman's home and attempting to rape her at knife-point was found innocent of all charges.

A jury returned the verdict for 34-year-old Kenneth Williams Thursday.

This is a perfect example of the criminal justice system working exactly as it should," said Williams' attorney, Paul Napolski. "After being incarcerated for 10 months, an innocent man was set free."

Williams was arrested in October after a neighbor called the police and told them he had menaced her with a knife and tried to rape her.

The then 27-year-old woman told police she heard a noise on the first floor of her her house and went downstairs to investigate. She then caught sight of Williams and he chased her back to her bedroom, according to court papers.

Williams tackled the woman onto a bed, flipped her onto her back and started pulling down her underwear, according to a complaint for a search warrant.

The woman told Williams she was pregnant and he halted his attack, the complaint said. He then asked her if she was going to call the police, the complaint said. She told him she would not but did so as soon as he left the house, it said.

The woman was not actually pregnant, police said at the time of the alleged attack, but found herself "saying anything" she thought might make him stop.

Napolski said fingerprints lifted from the door the woman said Williams used did not match the defendant. He also said DNA from three people was recovered from the woman's underwear but none of it belonged to Williams.

Williams was placed on the state's sex offender registry in connection with a 2005 aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a teenager conviction out of Kane County.

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