ILLINOIS
Post-Tribune

By Teresa Auch Schultz tauch@post-trib.com March 20, 2014

Jack Schaap, the former pastor at the First Baptist Church of Hammond megachurch, wants his 12-year sentence for having sex with a 16-year-old parishioner tossed, claiming he had bad representation from his attorneys.

Schaap, acting as his own attorney, on Thursday filed in U.S. District Court in Hammond a motion to vacate U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano’s March 20, 2013, sentence. Schaap claims his attorneys, Paul Stracci and Alison Benjamin, told him the maximum sentence he would receive would be 10 years in prison but that his sentence would more likely be three to four years or possibly as few as 18 months.

However, the charge he pleaded guilty to, causing his victim to be taken across state lines for sex, came with a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. His plea deal called for a 10-year sentence, and…