Man pleads guilty in sex assault

WHEATON -- Curtis D. Dryden was supposed to face a jury today on charges of criminal sexual assault against a Naperville teenage girl.

Instead, he pleaded guilty to the charges last week in DuPage County Circuit Court in Wheaton and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Dryden, 42, of Wheaton was accused of molesting the then-13-year-old Naperville girl in her family's home on several occasions between April and May 2006, according to police.

Police learned of the attacks when the girl's mother brought her to the Naperville police station that June. Investigators, with the DuPage County state's attorney's office and the DuPage Children's Center, made their case against Dryden, and he was subsequently indicted on four felony counts of criminal sexual assault.

Dryden pleaded guilty April 29 to one charge in exchange for the 15-year sentence and dismissal of the remaining three counts. He received credit for time served in the DuPage County Jail since his July 2006 arrest, where he remained held on $1 million bond. This conviction also requires that Dryden register as a sex offender.