A West Chicago mother arrested last year on charges of offering sex to an undercover Naperville police officer for $120—while her daughter sat in a locked car—avoided prison Monday, despite testing positive for heroin minutes before her hearing.
Judge Blanche Fawell sentenced Kristine Juline to 24 months of treatment-based probation and nearly a year of periodic imprisonment on Juline’s conviction for possession of a controlled substance and endangering the life of her young daughter last year.
Prosecutors, citing Juline’s disregard for her daughter and an uncontrolled drug addiction, asked Fawell to send Juline to prison for four years. However, Fawell’s decision to give Juline probation came with a warning.
“You test dirty once … and you’ll go to the department of corrections,” Fawell said.
Before the hearing, Fawell ordered Juline to take a drug test, which turned up positive for heroin. Juline admitted using last week, but said she believed it would have cleared her system before court.
Juline cried as she tried to explain how she ended up in a Naperville Home Depot parking lot with a plan to offer sex for money in August 2011. She said the money she would have picked up that day also would go to pay for gas, food and her 16-month-old daughter’s care.
Juline left the young girl locked inside the car—on a day when prosecutors said it was 86 degrees outside—and met up with what turned out to be an undercover police officer. Juline was charged with possession of a controlled substance, prostitution and endangering the life of a child.
She pleaded guilty to the drug and endangerment charges without a deal on her sentence. Juline was immediately taken to DuPage County Jail after Monday's hearing, with orders to only be released while receiving in-patient drug treatment.
Prosecutors characterized Juline as selfishly putting her drug needs ahead of everything else, including her daughter. Assistant State’s Attorney John Botti pointed out Juline’s daughter was born with heroin in her system. He also raised the hypothetical of what might have happened to the girl if Juline had found someone other than the police officer to engage in the sex act.
“How much longer would that child have had to sit in the car?” Botti said. “She neglected her daughter to get money to presumably get high. The defendant is not going to kick her habit.”
Fawell pointedly asked Juline what she was thinking when she decided to leave the girl alone in the car on a hot day. Juline responded she left the car running with the air conditioning on, which drew an incredulous look from Fawell.
“I know, it sounds horrible,” Juline said through tears.
The girl’s father now has custody of her, with Juline only allowed supervised visits, a probation officer said. Juline has a 2005 conviction for possession of a controlled substance, for which she was sentenced to one year in prison with jail credit that accounted for most of that sentence. She also failed DuPage County’s drug court.
Juline’s attorney argued probation gives Juline a better chance to control her addiction than if she were in prison.