Registered sex offender from Lake in the Hills pleads guilty to cocaine possession, gets 6 years in prison

A Lake in the Hills man and registered sex offender was sentenced to 6½ years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to unlawful possession with the intent to deliver cocaine.

Andrew Winter, 25, formerly of Wonder Lake, was ordered by Judge Mark Gerhardt to report to the county jail April 4 to begin his prison term, according to a judgment order filed in McHenry County court.

Additional charges, including drug and gun offenses as well as failure to register as a sex offender, were dismissed in exchange for the guilty plea, court records show. The sex offender violations, filed while Winter was on pretrial release in the drug and gun case, stem from a 2019 conviction of sexual abuse.

In that case, he entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to prison for three years. Prosecutors had alleged that Winter trespassed at a Lake in the Hills home and abused a woman he knew who had learning disabilities and could not give consent, according to court records and Northwest Herald reporting from that time.

An initial, more serious charge of criminal sexual assault, a Class 1 felony, was reduced to criminal sexual abuse, a Class 4 felony, to which he pleaded guilty, court records show.

Charges dismissed this week in exchange for the guilty plea include manufacturing and delivery of 1 to 15 grams of fentanyl, violating the sex offender registry for failing to inform the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office of a change of address and providing false information, according to court records.

Also dismissed were charges of unlawful use or possession of weapons or ammunition by a convicted felon; manufacturing and delivery of 30 to 500 grams of marijuana; obstructing justice; and possession of less than 200 grams of hydrocodone, less than 15 grams of methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, eight Suboxone films and drug paraphernalia, records show.

Authorities said Winter did not report a change of address from Hebron to McHenry, as required under sex offender registry laws. They also alleged that he was in possession of an air rifle “with the intent to use.” As a convicted felon, he is not allowed to be in possession of firearms.

The court documents further alleged that Winter, “with the intent to prevent apprehension, knowingly destroyed physical evidence [by swallowing] an unknown amount of cocaine.” Winter also was accused of possessing two black scales “with the intent to use them in preparing a controlled substance” for use, according to the complaint.

Winter is required to serve half his prison term followed by one year of mandatory supervised release, according to the judgment order.