Ex-CPS dean goes on trial for alleged sex abuse of student
While being dean of the discipline in the Chicago public school system, Brian Crowder approached a 15 -year -old student in the dining room in a small school in the village and asked her her username, the woman, now an adult, testified on Tuesday.
A little confused, the woman said that she had given her the information on her social media account. This led her to start sending her a message, she said, before entering a relationship with her.
Crowder began to be tried this week for accusations of aggravated criminal sexual assault and other crimes after the Cook county prosecutors accused him of engaging in sexual intercourse with a student from 2013 to 2016 while being dean associated with social justice High School, part of Little Village Lawndale High School.
The case is subject to a jury, because the treatment of allegations of sexual abuse by Chicago public schools has been the subject of a meticulous examination in recent years and, as Crowder is also appointed in a trial in 2024 which accuses CPS of not protecting its students.
Lawyers opened their business on Tuesday at the Leighton Criminal Tribunal Building before the former 26 -year -old student, testimony for hours, telling the jurors that Crowder engaged in a relationship and then forced him to have two abortions.
The gallery does not appoint the woman because she would be the victim of a case of sexual assault.
More emotional time, the woman started her testimony by recalling her second year of high school. When Crowder had asked questions about his snapchat, a social media platform in which messages and photos generally disappear after a while, she said that she had asked her why she wanted her account information.
“He said, it’s not like I’m going to add you,” she said. “It makes sense in my head because he was my dean of the school.”
But he quickly started sending a message to his photos and telling him that he wanted it, she said, adding that they finally started talking every day and getting involved in sex. He offered him alcohol, she said, and he would pass his notes during school suspensions, which he was responsible for monitoring.
The woman told the jurors that Crowder obtained her twice pregnant and harassed her to obtain abortions, even if she preferred to continue pregnancies.
“He said there was no way I could have the baby,” she said. “He would send me a text day and night all day so that I did not have this baby because he was going to go to prison and lose his son.”
Because she was a minor, she could not consent to the abortions herself. Crowder, using false names, has signed the consent forms, she said.
“I was just upset and emotional,” she said. “He was just very relieved.”
In 2018, the “betrayed” investigation of the Chicago Tribune revealed failures on the way in which the country’s fourth school district managed allegations of abuse, in particular by neglecting the accusations to the police or child protection investigators and not to carry out effective checks.
The civil complaint filed by the woman against Crowder and the school district strongly refer to the investigation of the gallery and alleys that the CPS at the time “did not follow the abuse of children by its employees or its agents in a format accessible to the public”.
The trial also accuses employees of the Little Village Lawndale High School of not having acted when an inappropriate relationship between Crowder and the student was noticed by others who “would joke about the amount of time spent alone” between Crowder and the student.
At one point, according to the trial, the student spoke to a teacher about his relationship with Crowder, but the teacher never took any measures to report or stop abuses.
