Teen’s sexual assault trial begins in Rolling Meadows

“My daughter was gone.”

That charged testimony came from the mother of the teenage girl who said two former Glenbard West High School football players raped her in a Rolling Meadows church parking lot last year.

The woman broke down when she described how her once bubbly and outgoing daughter became withdrawn and angry after authorities say Demarco Whitley and Pierre Washington-Steel, friends and former teammates, assaulted the then-15-year-old on Jan. 29, 2010.

The woman’s testimony concluded the first day of Whitley’s bench trial before Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta. Whitley, 19, has been charged with criminal sexual assault, a class 1 felony punishable by four to 15 years in prison. Washington-Steel, who prosecutors described during an earlier hearing as a deceased co-offender, was fatally injured in a single-vehicle crash about 80 minutes after the attack, prosecutors said. Whitley, who was in the car at the time, recovered from his injuries.

His attorneys say the sex was consensual, and they expect him to testify.

The mother of the teenage girl testified that her daughter was very upset and crying when she returned to their Rolling Meadows home early that January evening. The woman said her daughter told her a friend of hers had been raped and asked, “if you get in someone’s car, and they had sex with you and you said no, is that rape?”

“If she says no, that is rape,” replied the woman, who broke down several times on the witness stand. The woman said she didn’t realize it was her daughter who had been raped until the girl admitted it the next morning, after which the woman took her daughter to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.

Her daughter blames herself, said the woman, adding that the teen did not return to school for several months. Although she has received therapy, she has not gone out socially or seen her friends since the attack, her mother said.

The teenager also took the stand, testifying that she met Washington-Steel in summer 2009 and considered him a friend. The two talked, texted and met three or four times, she said.

When Washington-Steel invited her to hang out on Jan. 29, 2010, she agreed. He showed up in his car with another boy he described as his “cousin” — whom the girl did not know and who prosecutors say is Whitley — and drove the three to a parking lot behind a church, she testified.

“Pierre said I should ‘hook up’ with his cousin,” said the girl, who understood that to mean Washington-Steel wanted her to have sex with Whitley. She said no, but he kept asking in a tone she described as “kind of playful.”

“I thought he was serious, but I didn’t think he would care if I said no,” she said. “Pierre said, ‘Just do it. It’s not a big deal.’”

After the cousin got in the back seat with her, Washington-Steel reclined the front passenger seat and locked the doors, she said. When she reached to get her phone from her jacket lying on the front arm rest, Washington-Steel forced her head down, she said.

“I was yelling, crying and telling them to stop,” said the girl, who said both boys assaulted her.

The girl said the boys dropped her off at her friend’s house, and Washington-Steel told her he would call her later.

Asked why she didn’t tell her mother immediately, the teen responded, “I didn’t want her to be upset with me.”

Defense attorney Donna Rotunno questioned the girl about what Rotunno suggested were inconsistencies in her statements to police and medical personnel. Confronted with certain details on cross-examination, the girl said she did not know or could not remember. Rotunno also questioned why the girl didn’t tell her mother or authorities that she and Washington-Steel had been alone in the girl’s house on one previous occasion. The girl testified that neither boy threatened her with a weapon, and neither attempted to take her phone from her.

Prosecutors, in opening statements, said DNA evidence points to Whitley.

But Rotunno disputed the state’s version of events, saying “Jan. 29, 2010, was an arrangement,” not an assault.

The girl agreed to the “hook up,” Rotunno said. “It was set up. It was planned.”

McCarthy disagreed. What the girl experienced when she got into that car, was “her or any woman’s worst nightmare,” she said.

Testimony continues Tuesday in Rolling Meadows.