Man imprisoned for drugs charged with sex assault of teen

May 13—URBANA — A multiple-convicted felon who was sentenced in December to 25 years in prison for possessing heroin for sale has been charged with raping a teenage girl.

Keefer Jones, 52, who last lived in Champaign, was arraigned Friday for criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse for an alleged assault that occurred June 17, 2022.

The assault allegedly happened in Jones' Healey Street apartment with a 16-year-old runaway girl who told police she had met him three weeks earlier in a city park.

The matter came to the attention of authorities because the girl had passed out from a heroin overdose and medical officials were called to the apartment to revive her.

She told police when she regained consciousness that the last thing she remembered was drinking a drink provided by Jones.

Jones denied providing the girl a drink or touching her or knowing she was only 16. She agreed to a sex assault examination and lab results returned in February showed Jones could not be excluded as the contributor of male DNA found in the girl.

Jones acted as his own attorney in an October trial in which a jury took 10 minutes to convict him of possessing heroin for sale in October 2021.

He's due back in court on the new offense July 11.

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