Kendall County Sheriff’s Department deputies said they found a sexual predator hiding in a secret room at a Newark home after a two-month manhunt.
Kendall deputies received word Tuesday that Shawn Lipsey, 40, of Plano, might be hiding from police at his wife’s Newark home after failing to show up at a January sentencing hearing for sexually assaulting a juvenile family member.
According to Kendall County court records, Lipsey was convicted Nov. 6 of six counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecent solicitation of a child. He was let go on bail until his Jan. 13 hearing. He failed to show up for the hearing.
Kendall deputies, wiith the assistance of U.S. marshals and the Kendall County Cooperative Assistance Team, launched an investigation to find Lipsey.
The agencies’ big break came Tuesday, when police officials said they were tipped off that Lipsey might be staying with his wife, Raissa Jarosz-Lipsey, 40, at her home in the 500 block of East Broadway Street in Newark.
Members of the Kendall County sheriff’s SWAT unit went to the home Tuesday and said they eventually found Lipsey hiding in a secret room he apparently had built himself.
“It was wild,” Kendall County Sheriff’s Deputy Bryan Harl said. “Lipsey was located in the home, hiding in a specially constructed room. He made a fake wall, and it had hinges. He was hiding behind it.”
Harl said the room looked lived–in and that deputies have no idea how long Lipsey might have been hiding out there.
“Once we located him, Lipsey surrendered and was taken into custody,” Harl said. “There was no resistance. There was no fighting.”
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Lipsey is in custody on a no-bond warrant and is scheduled to be sentenced at 1:30 p.m. Friday in Kendall County court.
Jarosz-Lipsey was charged Tuesday with obstruction of justice, concealing or aiding a fugitive and filing a false police report. Jarosz-Lipsey allegedly knew her husband’s whereabouts when she reported him missing after he failed to surrender, law enforcement officials said. Her bail was set at $500,000, and she is in custody.