A former Army specialist has been sentenced to 75 years for sexually assaulting a young girl between 2011 and 2013, and before he enlisted.
Andrew Hui, 40, was found guilty of 12 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault and one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, Robert Berlin, the state attorney for DuPage County, Illinois, announced Thursday.
Hui will serve his sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Hui has been held in custody since he was arrested in May 2015. The sentence came from allegations that between April 2011 and June 2013, Hui sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl on multiple occasions while he was staying with the victim’s family at her home in Oak Brook, Illinois, officials said.
The girl eventually told her father of the abuse in March 2015 after Hui had already left their home, enlisted in the Army and was serving on active duty in South Korea, according to local media.
The father then contacted the Oak Brook Police Department who then contacted the DuPage County Children’s Center. Hui was returned to the United States for trial.
“For more than two years, Andrew Hui repeatedly sexually assaulted his young victim just to satisfy his own sick sexual desires,” state attorney Berlin said in a press release.
“What is particularly disturbing in this case is that Mr. Hui was an Army specialist and as such was trusted by the victim’s family and looked up to and admired by his victim," Berlin added. “He repaid the trust and admiration placed in him by sexually assaulting his young victim time and time again.”
For the predatory criminal sexual assault charges, Hui received 72 years. On the aggravated criminal sexual abuse charge, he will be required to serve three years. The sentences will be served consecutively.
The girl, now 15, originally stayed silent about the abuse she suffered because she was “terrified,” according to her testimony at trial in July, the Chicago Daily Herald reported.
“They taught us in school that only doctors, our parents and trusted adults should touch us,” the girl testified, according to the Herald. “I was confused. Alarm bells were going off, but I pushed past it.”
Kyle Rempfer was an editor and reporter who has covered combat operations, criminal cases, foreign military assistance and training accidents. Before entering journalism, Kyle served in U.S. Air Force Special Tactics and deployed in 2014 to Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and Baghdad, Iraq.
