A Crystal Lake man, with a lengthy criminal history, was charged Tuesday in the sexual abuse of a woman in a Downtown parking garage, police said.
Garland Benton, 45, faces charges of aggravated battery in a public place, aggravated criminal sexual abuse and attempted aggravated criminal sexual assault, Chicago police said. He was ordered detained at a hearing Tuesday.
A 20-year-old woman was walking in the Millennium Parking Garage in the first block of North Michigan Avenue at 6:40 a.m. Monday when Benton threw her to the ground, hit her in the face and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said. Bystanders intervened — with one taking a picture of Benton and another hitting him with a wet floor sign that was nearby — though he continued to charge at the woman before fleeing.
Benton was captured on CTA surveillance changing twice before being arrested at a bus stop near the Halsted Orange Line station, prosecutors said. Benton had a one-way Amtrak ticket to Kansas City and was carrying a sex toy when he was taken into custody.
The woman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with scratches, bruises and lacerations, police said.
Benton has a lengthy criminal history spanning back to 1998 that includes multiple instances in which he previously assaulted women, prosecutors said. Since 2015, he has been sentenced to at least 13 years in custody and spent nearly two years on probation.
Benton was sentenced to six months of court supervision for a battery charge after he hit a 31-year-old woman with a crate on a CTA bus in April 2015, prosecutors said.
He was sentenced to a year in prison after he was arrested in August 2018 for criminal damage to government property when he repeatedly tried to gain entry to the Van Buren Street Metra Station women’s bathroom. He served another year for groping a woman at a gym in Norridge in November 2019.
In June 2020, he was sentenced to 364 days in county jail for public indecency, according to court records. It was the same month he was sentenced to five years in prison for punching a 19-year-old woman in the face at a CTA station and another five years for criminal damage to property after he ripped out a credit card terminal and threw a speaker through the front window of a cell phone store.
Two years later, Benton was arrested on an aggravated assault charge after he allegedly threatened to kill a postal worker when he became frustrated at the post office, according to prosecutors. He was also convicted of aggravated assault of a transit official in June 2019 for repeatedly threatening a CTA bus driver’s life, and sentenced to a year in prison after threatening a police officer’s life at the Dirksen Courthouse in July 2018.
Most recently, he was arrested in November for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and failure to appear for a felony hearing, among other more minor offenses, prosecutors said. In February 2024, he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit in Las Vegas.
Benton is scheduled to appear in court again April 22.