Correctional Officer charged with Crminal Sexual Assault

A Cook County sheriff's correctional officer has been charged with the 1997 rape of a 10-year-old girl in south suburban Harvey after a DNA test allegedly linked him to the crime, the Cook County state's attorney's office said.

The charges were brought upon from a 2007 raid by state's attorney investigators and other law enforcement officers on the Harvey Police Department where many untested rape kits were found.

The 45 year old correctional officer was after state's attorney investigators got a DNA sample from him to compare with the DNA originally in the rape kit in 1997, which had gone untested by the Harvey Police Department.

The 45 year old man was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault. According to officers, he sexually assaulted the child over the course of seven months in the Harvey home. In August 1997, the girl told her mother about the assaults, and she was taken to a hospital where a rape kit and was taken and semen identified.

The mother contacted Harvey police, who questioned this individual but later released him without charges and without sending the rape kit to the Illinois State Police Crime Lab for testing, law enforcement said.

He was ordered held Wednesday with $200,000 bail, and the sheriff's department has started the process to fire him.

Please contact an experience attorney from the law offices of Acosta Batovski & Schimiege today if you need skilled legal representation to fight against the charges you are facing.