By Rummana Hussain
Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — A former Illinois Department of Corrections probation officer was convicted Thursday of having sex with a parolee while he was overseeing her case.
Cook County Judge James Linn found Robert Rowels guilty of custodial sexual misconduct and official misconduct following a bench trial, according to state’s attorney’s office spokesman Andy Conklin.
Linn acquitted Rowels, 46, of criminal sexual assault.
Rowels had sex with the woman between Nov. 26 and Dec. 23, 2009, prosecutors said.
At the time of his arrest last year, authorities said Rowels threatened to send the 27-year-old woman back to prison if she didn’t “help him out” with his oral sex demands.
Once, when he had the woman perform a sex act in his state-issued car, the victim spit Rowels’ semen into a tissue, which he grabbed and threw in the alley.
The woman returned to the alley and recovered the tissue The DNA on the tissue was later matched to Rowels.
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