A summer camp operator was sentenced Friday to 45 years inprison for sexually abusing two suburban Addison boys.
Before sentencing, Arthur J. Taggart, 59, told Du Page CountyCircuit Judge John J. Bowman that he had been framed byinvestigators.
But prosecutors produced a series of witnesses who testifiedthat Taggart had repeatedly engaged in sexual misconduct over theyears.
"What we proved up today was a 30-year history of sex abuse,"said Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Birkett.
A Du Page jury convicted Taggart on Feb. 23 of five counts ofsexually assaulting the two boys in 1986 while he was here to recruityouths for his Camp Running Deer in Kentucky. Taggart ran the smallcamp from 1956 to 1986.
Two Chicago-area men testified at Friday's sentencing hearingthat Taggart had beaten them with a wooden paddle during the 1970s,while they were students at the Wyler Military School for boys inEvansville, Wis.
Taggart, the academy's chief disciplinarian, beat some boys somuch that they could not sit for days, one man said.
Also testifying were police who said Taggart was convicted of asex-related felony in Tennessee.
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