Carl D. Russ
SALINE CO.—Carl D. Russ, 46, convicted sex offender, has been sentenced to 39 years in Illinois’ Department of Corrections, and he has fellow convict Raymond Moss to thank for it.
Russ is the perv who was accused in December of 2008 of molesting a family member, a boy of 14, repeatedly in the months of July through September of that year. There were multiple counts—more than two dozen—including Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault, Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse and Criminal Sexual Assault, all of a Family Member charged against him.
Initially, Russ had agreed to a 12-year sentence back in late 2008, when he entered a plea of guilty to one charge.
However, he filed to withdraw his plea, and in October 2009, the withdrawal was acknowledged. He bounced around the court system for awhile, ultimately, in late 2010, he decided to have a jury trial.
Raymond Moss, DOC mugshot
But it was the reason he decided to have one that’s the big story here. Because he was convinced that he would be able to win the case in a jury trial by none other than shithouse lawyer who has enough of his own troubles, Raymond Moss.
Shut away at the Saline County Detention Center with Russ, Moss was able to “assess” Russ’ case and determined that he “could win it if he took it to jury trial.” So Russ did. And he lost. Big-time. After emotional testimony from those involved, including relatives of the abused boy, Russ was found guilty in August by a jury of his peers of three criminal sexual assaults and 23 counts of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse counts.
Today, his sentence was handed down by Judge Walden Morris: 39 years. And as a sex offender, he must serve 85 percent of the sentence, no day-for-day good time here.
So there you go….maybe this is a preview of things to come for Raymond, who has yet to go to trial on his own sex charges. Way to go, Raymonduh….we’ll all be placing bets out here that you’ll end up in the same place as Carl.