A judge has found a former Glenbard West High School football player guilty of sexual assault against a 15-year-old girl.
Demarco Whitley now faces a minimum of 16 years in prison when he is sentenced next month.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the sex occurred, and there is no doubt in my mind that it occurred the way the victim described it,” said Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta, Jr., as members of Whitley’s family cried from the gallery.
The judge then revoked Whitley’s bond, and he was taken immediately into custody.
Whitley, now 19, had denied the charges that he sexually assaulted the girl in a car in a Rolling Meadows church parking lot in January 2010.
But Fecarotta found Whitley guilty of four counts of criminal sexual assault, each of which carry a minimum four-year sentence that must be served consecutively, authorities said. Whitley was acquitted on one count of criminal sexual assault.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed with the decision,” Whitley’s attorney, Donna Rotunno, said after the verdict was announced. “I don’t’ think anybody wins.”
When he took the stand in his defense on Wednesday, Whitley admitted that he and his friend and teammate, Pierre Washington-Steel, arranged to meet the girl for sex but insisted it was consensual and that she never resisted.
After dropping off the girl at a friend’s house, Washington-Steel, who prosecutors have said participated in the assault, crashed the car. He died of his injuries days later; Whitley was also seriously injured but has recovered.
In closing statements today, his attorney, Donna Rotunno, went further, saying the girl made up the rape story because she was dating another boy and didn’t want him to know she had sex with Whitley and Washington-Steel.
“She’s a liar. She lied to her mother, she lied to police, she lied to her friends,” Rotunno said.
Prosecutors again focused on the fact that Whitley signed a statement to police admitting the sex was against the girl’s will. They also noted how easily the two football players could have overpowered the girl.
“She became afraid to run. They were bigger. They had a car. She didn’t want to make them angrier,” Assistant State’s Attorney Maria McCarthy said.
Whitley waived his right to a jury trial.
