A Hanover Park man has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to traveling to an Aurora hotel for a sexual encounter with a teen girl.
Nabeel Afsar, 23, of the 1300 block of Santa Anita Drive, Hanover Park, agreed Thursday to a sentence of 33 months in prison in exchange for his guilty plea to traveling to meet a minor, a Class 3 felony, the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office announced Thursday afternoon.
Kane County Circuit Judge James C. Hallock accepted the plea. Assistant State’s Attorney Christine Bayer prosecuted the case.
On Dec. 23, 2014, Afsar went to an Aurora hotel planning to have sex with what he believed would be a 15-year-old girl, Bayer said at the plea hearing.
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When Afsar arrived at the hotel, he met someone he thought was the girl’s mother, confirmed he would pay $80 for 30 minutes of sexual favors, and was arrested by officers from the Aurora Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
Afsar is eligible for day-for-day sentencing under state law, and is receiving credit to his prison sentence for two days already served in the Kane County Jail. He had otherwise been free on $3,500 bond.
In accordance with the state’s Sexual Offender Registration Act, Afsar must also register for 10 years as a sexual offender.
Wheaton-based criminal defense attorney Scott Kent, who represented Afsar in the case, said he thinks the sentence is appropriate in light of various aspects of the case. However, he maintains that his client never intended to have a sexual encounter with a minor, and said Afsar had responded to an online advertisement for an adult. When Afsar responded to the ad via text message, police on the other end mentioned available teenagers, but Afsar’s intent was still to meet an adult, Kent argued.
Kent believes Afsar’s plea deal was in his best interest, because a guilty conviction at trial would have ended with a minimum six-year sentence, Kent said.
“When a jury sees these kind of charges, they already have terrible thoughts in their heads, and it’s hard for them to get past the allegations regardless of the strength of the state’s attorney’s case,” Kent said. “It was a decision we came to after much consideration of himself and his family.”
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