'Repulsive and depraved': Joliet man receives life sentence for sexually assaulting 5-year-old girl

JOLIET, Ill. - A Joliet man was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl he was supposed to be looking after in 2017.

A Will County jury found 58-year-old Vincent Winters guilty of three counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

On Oct. 11, 2017, the victim's mother was starting a new job and asked Winters to watch her two children and take her daughter to school in the morning, according to the Will County State's Attorney's Office. Winters sexually assaulted the girl before taking her to school.

When she was picked up from school, the girl told her mother Winters sexually assaulted her.

"Winters is a repulsive and depraved predator who used a mother’s need for help as his opportunity to sexually prey on a little girl in her own home while her mother was hard at work at a new job trying to take care of her children," Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said. "This deviant degenerate individual will spend the remainder of his days locked away from society so that he cannot harm another innocent child."

Winters received the life sentence because of a previous aggravated criminal sexual assault conviction from 1993.