‘Girl X' sex attacker jailed for 120 years

A man was sentenced to a maximum 120 years in prison for a sex attack that left a nine-year-old child - known only as Girl X in court - blind, mute and crippled.

‘‘I do not believe that even this sentence is enough for the acts of this defendant, but the law limits the sentence that I can impose,’’ Chicago Judge Joseph Urso told Patrick Sykes, a 29-year-old convicted sex offender.

Prosecutors said that in 1997, Sykes lured Girl X into an apartment at Chicago’s crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project, sexually assaulted her, poured insecticide down her throat, beat her and left her for dead.

Before sentence, Sykes took the witness stand and said: ‘‘No matter how much time I get in this courtroom today, I will still say it is not me. I am innocent.’’

Girl X testified this spring during Sykes’ trial, using head movements to answer questions. She said a man she had often seen in her apartment building offered her a banana, luring her into an apartment, then pulled a knife on her.

On Monday, a prosecutor read a statement initialled by Girl X, now 14 and in a wheelchair, in which she said: ‘‘I am glad he is going to jail because he was wrong for doing this to me.’’

Sykes, an unemployed ex-convict at the time of the attack, was living in the apartment building with a girlfriend. He denied ever seeing the girl until she testified against him.

He had previously served time in prison for attacking a 17-year-old girl at knifepoint in a hallway, robbing her and exposing himself.