‘She’s lived in prison already’: Assistant state’s attorney doesn’t plan to charge wife after Rodhouse found guilty

PITTSFIELD, Ill. — The oldest son of Austin Rodhouse celebrated his fifth birthday less than a week before the trial against his father began at the Pike County Courthouse in Pittsfield. 

It was the first birthday he spent out of his father’s reach.

Next week will be his father’s turn to celebrate a birthday. He will turn 31, and since he just became a convicted felon, it will be the first birthday he spends behind bars. An eight-woman, four-man jury on Friday found Rodhouse guilty on all 19 counts of domestic violence and sex-related felonies he’d been charged with.

Pike County Assistant State’s Attorney Leecia Carnes said Friday afternoon she has no plans to pursue charges against Rodhouse’s wife, who testified during the two-week trial that she was forced by her husband to commit acts of sexual abuse against their two sons, now ages 5 and 3.

Carnes said after the announcement of the verdict that the evidence she presented during the trial was just the tip of the iceberg of abuse committed by Rodhouse against his wife, identified in court documents as “CC.”

“Having seen what she’s been put through all these years — like, you guys only saw a tad bit,” Carnes said. “It’s horrendous.

“She’s lived in prison already.”

Rodhouse was found guilty of:

• 3 counts of aggravated domestic battery, a Class 2 felony with a sentencing range of between three and seven years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. 
• 1 count of criminal sexual assault involving force, a Class 1 felony with a sentencing range of between four and 15 years in prison.
• 4 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of six to 60 years in prison.
• 3 counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of six to 30 years in prison.
• 2 counts of child pornography, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of six to 30 years in prison.
• 3 counts of indecent solicitation of an adult, a Class 2 felony with a sentencing range of three to seven years in prison.
• 3 counts of aggravated battery to a child, a Class 3 felony with a sentencing range of two to five years in prison.

The verdict came after four hours of deliberation and nine agonizing days of trial proceedings, during which several pieces of “graphic and vile” evidence were presented.

CC eventually admitted on the stand Thursday under cross-examination from defense attorney Casey Schnack to four sexual encounters with her children — one of which the jury saw on video. Another act allegedly was captured on video, and Rodhouse claimed he had a copy of that video on an SD card. CC testified that Rodhouse repeatedly blackmailed her, saying he would take that SD card to local law enforcement if she didn’t do what he wanted.

“I did it because I was threatened and manipulated,” CC testified.

Schnack said on Friday after the verdict was read that CC should be charged.

“She should be held accountable for something,” Schnack said. “(The prosecution) got their guilty verdict, but justice wasn’t served. Those two boys have not been served justice.”

CC’s father testified on Thursday that he and his wife, who live in Ohio, have been foster parents to their grandsons since July 25. CC now lives nearby with her sister and has daily contact with her boys, with at least one of her parents supervising.

Much of Schnack’s defense focused on CC’s role as a willful participant in her own abuse — as part of a BDSM lifestyle in the Rodhouse home in Pleasant Hill — and the abuse of her children. CC stayed with her husband from when they met in 2018 when he was working on a pipeline in Ohio until May 8, when he was arrested.

Schnack said none of the witnesses who became entangled in Rodhouse and CC’s relationship described difficulty in leaving Rodhouse when they all inevitably decided to do so.

“It took two or three phone calls. It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Schnack said in her closing statement to the jury. “Be scared of manipulation — be scared of it — but there was nothing to be scared of … (CC) wasn’t chained to the walls. She wasn’t locked in a room. She wasn’t forced to stay there … (CC) wanted to stay with Austin. She wanted to keep her family together.

“Is that somebody that’s been a victim? I don’t think so.”

Carnes had a different perspective.

“Everyone always says, ‘Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t the woman do this or that?” she said in her rebuttal to Schnack’s statement. “Do you know what that is? That’s called victim-blaming.”

Carnes said during the trial that she sent a letter on May 22 to John Coonrod, CC’s attorney, stating any further information that CC shared with law enforcement or Department of Child and Family Services employees regarding abuse against her two children would not be used against her for any criminal prosecution — as long as the information was truthful.

Carnes said Friday she believes she could charge CC with abuse crimes pertaining to the sex acts that occurred on May 1 and 2 between CC and her son, then age 4. However, Carnes believes such charges would likely garner a defense of duress.

Duress has been defined in several cases in Illinois law as “including the imposition, oppression, undue influence or the taking of undue advantage of the stress of another whereby one is deprived of the exercise of (a person’s) free will.” Cornell Law School defines duress as “a situation where one person makes unlawful threats or otherwise engages in coercive behavior that causes another person to commit acts that they would otherwise not commit.”

Judge Charles H.W. Burch will sentence Rodhouse on Jan. 15.