Drawing gasps from inside the courtroom, a Cook County assistant state’s attorney read in detail how prosecutors allege that a convicted child molester sexually abused a 10-year-old girl and two other children.
John Malinowski, 42, stood silent before a judge in Bond Court on Thursday as he faced a total of 15 charges, including one count of aggravated kidnapping, 10 counts of predatory sexual assault, two counts of criminal sexual abuse, one count of child pornography and one count of sexual exploitation. The judge ordered Malinowski held without bail.
Police credit his arrest to the courage of the 10-year-old girl they say he grabbed from an alley and then raped.
The girl took a shortcut through the alley in the 3400 block of South Claremont Avenue about 2 p.m. Tuesday because she was cold, prosecutors said. She was just a house away from her home when Malinowski grabbed her, covered her mouth and threatened to kill her. He then dragged her to a vacant third-floor apartment in Brighton Park at 3502 S. Artesian Ave., where he had been temporarily staying.
Malinowski, whose last known permanent address was in the 2800 block of West 38th Street, has been homeless since losing his job as a security guard.
After he performed sexual acts on the girl, she saw a digital wall clock that read 2:40 p.m. and told Malinowski she had to be home by 3 p.m. or her mother would get worried and call police, prosecutors said.
At one point, Malinowski showed the girl several photos in a green photo album of another girl engaged in sexual acts, Cook County Assistant State’s Atty. Karen O’Malley said. Before letting her go, he threatened her again not to tell anyone what happened, O’Malley said.
Moments later, O’Malley said the girl called her mother and told her what happened. Within hours, the girl led authorities to Malinowski’s apartment, where they found him hiding in a closet wearing the security guard jacket he wore when he approached the girl, Chicago police Lt. Robert Hargesheimer said
Malinowski, who was convicted in 1987 of sexually abusing a 4-year-old boy, told police that the girl approached him and asked him to have sex with her.
On Tuesday, police took from the apartment a green photo album that led them to another 10-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother, who police said Malinowski sexually abused and exploited from June 16, 2002, to Aug. 31.
Malinowski, who graduated from Kelly High School and is divorced, met the brother and sister after becoming their mother’s supervisor at Intell Security Inc., where he worked as a security guard for more than 10 years, authorities said.
The children’s mother said Thursday that Malinowski gave her a ride from work one rainy day and he soon became a friend of the family. It wasn’t until she had known him for a year that she let Malinowski take her children to places like the beach, park and out to eat alone.
But she told Malinowski to stop coming around when he tried to take her daughter to his apartment without telling her, the mother said. In front of Malinowski, she said she asked her daughter if he had touched her, but her daughter said he had not.
But prosecutors said Malinowski sexually abused the girl, now 10, several times and forced her brother to take photos of the acts. He did not commit sexual acts with the boy, O’Malley said.
Malinowski recorded the dates of the sex acts in a journal that was confiscated Tuesday from the apartment, prosecutors said. He also wrote letters to the children’s mother telling her of the sexual acts and that he committed them because “he had lost his job and car and thought he would be better off in jail,” O’Malley said.
The mother said Thursday that she never received any letters from Malinowski.
The brother and sister said they didn’t tell their mother about what they were forced to do because Malinowski had threatened them. “He said, `If you don’t take these pictures, I’m going to get you,'” said the boy, now 12.
The boy said he was relieved to find out that Malinowski had been arrested.
“It’s been hard for me. I’m not holding it in anymore,” he said.
