A man convicted this week of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at gunpoint after abducting him from his driveway was sentenced on Thursday to 99 years in prison. Keith Hill, who confessed to kidnapping and raping four other young men in a Texas city during an eight-month spree in 2006, said in a statement that he deeply regretted the attacks and hopes his victims "find it in their heart to forgive me." "It would not happen if I did not have mental issues," he added. The case attracted the interest of those who study the criminal mind because the attacker preyed on men, something of a rarity in the world of crime. The US Justice Department says one in 33 men in the United States has been a victim of a rape or attempted rape, compared with one in six women. Experts say men are far less likely to report a rape because they fear being perceived as weak. Hill blamed his aggressive behaviour on an incident when he was 13, when a "white guy in his 40s" knocked on his door and said, "We're going to have some fun." He said he screamed and ran away after the man touched his "personal areas."
Hill is black and all the victims are white. Hill also said he prayed to both God and the devil for instruction and decided to attack men because "it would be less hard on them." The judge barred prosecutors from introducing photographs taken from Hill's home computer. Baytown police said the images demonstrated Hill's fascination with porn, especially "sexual bondage with white males," the Houston Chronicle newspaper reported in its online editions. The victim in the case testified Monday that he was blindfolded with duct tape, his hands were tied behind his back with zip ties and he was forced into the back seat of a sport utility vehicle, where he was forced to perform oral sex and was hit on the back of the head with a gun eight or nine times. The young man, who was 17 at the time, is not being identified because he is a victim of sexual assault. Hill said in his statement he struck two victims after the assault because he was "upset at them for doing what I told them to do."
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