After a 10-year-old boy said he told employees he was gang-raped inside the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, officials failed to protect him from the danger of further attack or fully investigate his allegations, according to law enforcement sources and internal documents.
Charges were eventually filed against four other youths, only after outside agencies intervened. Detention center officials say their attempts to deal with the matter were hampered by denials to them by both victim and witnesses that any sexual attacks had occurred.
The boy and witnesses have told probation officers, police and investigators at the state’s attorney’s office that the four youths now charged, ranging in age from 11 to 13, pinned the victim to the floor in a detention center dayroom and, in turn, assaulted him.
The victim told prosecutors the same four also tried to rape him on an earlier occasion in a detention center bathroom. He said that after each attack in late August or early September, he complained to detention staffers without any action being taken against the other boys.
By Sept. 23, a week after a probation officer gave detention center officials information about one of the attacks, the 10-year-old had not been separated from his alleged attackers, nor given a routine medical examination to corroborate or refute the rape allegation, detention center officials acknowledge.
After outside intervention led to charges of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault against the four alleged attackers, a police officer testified during a court hearing that two of them had confessed to sexually assaulting the 10-year-old.
The four have each pleaded innocent and are scheduled to go to trial in Juvenile Court on Dec. 20.
Jim Koch, who represents the victim and his family asked, “Where were all these people at the detention center who were suppose to watch this child?”
Jesse Doyle, superintendent of the juvenile facility at 1100 S. Hamilton Ave. commonly known as the Audy Home, said that the 10-year-old victim was not separated from his attackers-or given a medical examination-because the victim and several witnesses, at one point, denied any attack occurred.
Andrea Brands, spokeswoman for Cook County Board President John Stroger, said that while no detention home employees have been disciplined thus far for any misconduct in the case, “this matter will not be dropped. We will talk to all the principals involved to ensure that the correct steps were taken.”
Napoleon Goodman, a staff attendant in the housing unit where the attacks allegedly occurred, denied a statement by the 10-year-old that he brushed off the boy’s complaints of being sexually attacked, or that he was even aware of the allegations.
“If he would have told me, something would have been done,” Goodman said. “These kinds of things don’t happen here.”
The detention center is the only facility in Cook County for temporarily holding juveniles accused of serious crimes.
Police and prosecutors say the detention center’s investigation into the rape was limited to interviews of the victim and three witnesses after learning of the rape allegations from a probation officer of one of the witnesses.
And in those interviews, according to a Sept. 16 memo from detention center official Ronald Oldaker, to Supt. Doyle, the alleged victim and two of the witnesses denied a sexual assault occurred. A third witness initially described in detail the dayroom rape, but later said he made up the story, according to Oldaker’s memo.
Michael Mahoney, director of the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog agency, said there should have been a further investigation despite those denials since the juvenile officials should have been aware it is common for sexual assault victims, particularly youthful ones, to initially deny they’ve been attacked because of shame.
He said detention center officials should have moved the victim out of the same housing unit as his attackers immediately after learning of the rape to protect him from further physical harm and to encourage him to be completely truthful about what had happened.
The outside investigation began Sept. 23, when the victim’s probation officer reported the allegations to the Department of Children and Family Services, who in turn notified Chicago police, according to Audy Home and probation office documents.
The 10-year-old alleged victim, a ward of the state who had been arrested for attempting a robbery with a toy gun, was locked up at the detention center on Aug. 15.
He was assigned to Unit 5G, which has a dozen or so secured cells, a common shower-bathroom, and a dayroom. Activities in the dayroom, where detainees watch television, eat their meals and socialize, are supposed to be monitored by staff attendants from behind a console inside the room.
Sources say the alleged attackers include a 12-year-old serving a 30-day sentence for four burglary convictions; an 11-year-old found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl; a 13-year-old convicted of attempted murder and awaiting placement at a state-run juvenile facility; and another 13-year-old, awaiting trial for possession of a stolen vehicle.
The 10-year-old said that about 2 or 3 weeks after he was brought to the facility, the other four youths grabbed him in the bathroom, and partially undressed him before a staff member entered the room, but apparently did not detect anything was wrong.
The boy said he later told three staff members about the incident, and the next day, three of his assailants-who found out he had reported them-went to his cell, shoved a pillowcase over his head, and punched him in the head repeatedly.
The 10-year-old says the second assault took place several days later in the dayroom when the same four boys pushed him to the floor and took turns raping him.
About a week later, an 11-year-old told his probation officer, Mark Dean-Myrda, about witnessing the incident, according to a Sept. 15 report from Dean-Myrda to his supervisor.
Dean-Myrda said he had notified Oldaker, who promised an investigation, including a medical examination of the 10-year-old. But in a memorandum to Doyle the next day, Oldaker said the boy had merely complained about being “picked on” by other residents and denied being sexually assaulted.
Oldaker then interviewed the 11-year-old witness who at first recounted in detail the dayroom attack but later recanted, saying he concocted the story to get the four boys in trouble for “jumping him in the bathroom.”
Although Oldaker also said he had interviewed two other witnesses-including a 13-year-old-who recounted seeing only a fight in the dayroom, a week later that same 13-year-old gave a detailed acount of the dayroom rape to his probation officer, Susan Stibs.
Stibs then called Ore Jones, the victim’s probation officer, who along with DCFS caseworker Karen Roberts, interviewed him, and brought police into the investigation.
Officer Diane O’Sullivan said after talking to the alleged victim, she asked center officials to move the victim, from Unit 5G, and ordered a medical exam. Prosecutors refused to disclose the outcome of the examination because of the pending trial.
In early October, the victim was transferred to an out-of-state residential treatment center for victims of physical and sexual abuse.
