Leerkamp And Alvarez Agree Forcible Sodomy Involving Boys Is Just Horseplay

Former Hamilton Co. Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp struggled to find any crime had been committed when members of the Carmel High School boys basketball team sexually assaulted younger team members by pulling down their pants and inserting objects into their butts. After considerable public pressure, she brought only misdemeanor charges against the offenders. In an earlier case involving the sodomizing of a member of the school's swim team by older teammates, Leerkamp brought no charges after concluding it was just boys being boys. Apparently Cook Co. State's Attorney Anita Alvarez shares Leerkamp's cavalier attitude towards sexual assaults committed against young male victims. Police in Des Plaines, Illinois complain about Alvarez' refusal to bring felony charges against members of the Maine Township high school soccer team who sodomized younger teammates while their coaches watched.

Des Plaines police said they sought felony charges in a hazing incident in which teenage soccer players were allegedly sodomized by teammates.

But so far, Cook County prosecutors have shot them down.

And for now a criminal investigation into apparent hazing rituals at Maine West High School has only resulted in misdemeanor charges against six teenagers.

“We took this case very seriously,” Des Plaines police Deputy Chief Nick Treantafeles said. “We did our part of the investigation, however, we must work in conjunction with the state’s attorney’s office because they’re the ones that will prosecute the case.”

Prosecutors simply didn’t have what they needed legally to charge the teens with felonies, a spokeswoman said . . .

The misdemeanor charges filed so far resulted from an incident in which three soccer players were allegedly sodomized on campus Sept. 27 as part of an initiation into the soccer team, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of two of those boys. Police reports, however, only list two 14-year-old victims that day.

Police reports and an attorney for two of the players said their teammates pulled down the victims’ underwear and sodomized them with fingers and sticks.

I guess Alvarez has been too busy filing felony charges against private citizens who videotape police in public and attorneys who let their clients use their cell phones to prosecute high school jocks who are still at an age when people do "dumb things" as one former Cook Co. judge put it in explaining Alvarez' decision.