Former NU student faces man who raped her in her dorm

A former Northwestern University student wept as she faced the man who sexually assaulted her in her Evanston dorm room six years ago, telling him the assault left her emotionally devastated and at her lowest point contemplating suicide.

Speaking Friday at the man’s sentencing, she said, “I want to ask the defendant: Why? At what point did you decide that I was unworthy of basic human respect? At what point in time did you decide my physical autonomy did not matter?”

Pablo Herrera, a 33-yearold West Chicago man, was sentenced to six years in prison for criminal sexual assault.

During the trial last spring, the woman, now 27, testified that she met Herrera several months before the assault and that the two communicated over social media before deciding to meet up and go to a few clubs in Chicago. Later that night, she said she agreed to let him sleep on the floor of her room at Foster-Walker residence hall on campus.

She said Herrera approached her while she slept and assaulted her, despite her telling him firmly several times to stop. He eventually did, telling her she was “lucky because some of his friends wouldn’t have stopped,” the woman testified.

At the sentencing in Cook County’s Skokie branch court Friday, the woman said that in the months and years after the assault, her life fell apart and, at one of her lowest points, she collapsed onto the floor of her apartment trying to determine if she had enough medication, prescribed to her after the assault, to take her own life.

Now an attorney, the woman said that despite the long legal process and her ongoing emotional struggles, she is glad she reported the crime.

“This avenue, through the hoops, hurdles and delays of a clunky criminal justice system, is the only way to hold those who hurt others officially accountable for their actions,” she said.

Herrera did not address the court during the hearing. But his fiancee and his mother-in-law testified on his behalf, calling him a good father and a nice person with friends and family who liked him.

Prosecutors said Herrera will have to serve at least 85 percent of the six-year sentence and will have to register as a sex offender for life.