ALTON - A judge Wednesday sentenced sexual predator Keith L. Hare, 52, to 60 years in prison after a prosecutor argued Hare’s bad conduct began years ago and progressed to Nov. 16, 2019, when he contacted an Alton woman via the Internet and set up a “threesome.”
Assistant State’s Attorney Jake Harlow argued that a tape of the victim shortly after the crimes shows the damage Hare, a former police officer, had done. “You can clearly see she was shell-shocked. How can we expect a 6-year-old girl to recover after being sexually assaulted two times,” Harlow said in a sentencing hearing.
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“When she testified, she clearly remained traumatized. We can only hope and pray the trauma will make her resilient,” the prosecutor added.
Harlow noted that Hare used his position as an East St. Louis police officer to get access to victims. He was charged in 2017 in St. Clair County, with felony predatory sexual assault of a child but was allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor official misconduct.
Harlow claimed Hare committed similar crimes in 1985 and 2009.
During a bench trial Circuit Judge Kyle Napp convicted Hare on Nov. 17, of twice raping the victim, once on a park bench in Rock Spring Park in Alton and another time in his car. The victim told of the events in an interview at the Child Advocacy Center, and her friend gave the same account on the witness stand. The judge said the victim’s friend, then 6, was brave and “absolutely believable.”
“You are a predator. What you did was absolutely predation in its most brutal form,” the judge told Hare, who made no statement on his own behalf. “You're a predator in every sense of the word. Your victim will never be the same,” the judge told Hare.
Authorities said Hare developed an Internet relationship with Rashanda Barnets of Alton. She helped set up the crimes. Hare, of St. Louis, came to Alton to pick up Barnes, the victim, and other children on the pretense they were going out for pizza. Instead, he drove to Rock Spring Park.
Barnes was originally charged with indecent solicitation and predatory sexual assault of a child but pleaded guilty to a lesser charged and was placed on probation.
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