A former prison guard and Willowbrook man previously convicted of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old was found guilty Tuesday by a federal jury for hiding his past as a sex offender.

Daniel Rappe, 47, was arrested in a Willowbrook apartment in 2007 and faced charges of failure to register as a sex offender and three counts of obstruction of justice. He allegedly phoned his girlfriend from the DuPage County Jail to erase computer hard drives in their apartment, according to authorities.

Rappe is the first person in Illinois to be convicted under the Adam Walsh Act, a law named after the son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh. Adam was abducted and slain in Florida in 1981. The law bearing his name aims to standardize the laws for sex-offender registration across different states, preventing offenders from moving to more lenient areas to avoid registration. The law also requires these cases be handled by the federal court system as opposed to the county district court level.

Rappe was convicted in DuPage County of criminal sexual assault in 1986 and aggravated criminal sex abuse in 1989. The victims were both children.
Rappe was required to register as a sex offender after being released in 1992 and did register in Will County in 1997 and DuPage County in 1999, according to prosecutors.

He then told authorities he was moving to Wisconsin, but instead stayed in Willowbrook for seven years, all while getting driver’s licenses in Indiana and handing out falsified addresses and Social Security numbers to employers. He also went by an alias, according to authorities.

Rappe faces up to 10 years in prison for failing to register, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, Sept. 2, by U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning in Chicago.