Teen injured in fatal 2010 crash faces sexual assault charges

A Glenbard West High School former football player faces charges that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl hours before an automobile crash that claimed the life of his friend a year ago.

Rolling Meadows police charged 18-year-old Demarco Whitley, a senior, with criminal sexual assault, a class 1 felony punishable by four to 15 years in prison. A Cook County judge set his bail at $50,000 Wednesday.

Authorities say Whitley’s friend and teammate Pierre Washington-Steel, who died six days after the crash, knew the 15-year-old girl and arranged to meet her on Jan. 29, 2010. Whitley and Washington-Steel picked the girl up at her house and drove her to a Rolling Meadows parking lot where Whitley and Washington-Steel assaulted her, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Shortly after the alleged assault, Whitley and Washington-Steel were involved in a single-vehicle crash at the corner of Swift and St. Charles roads in Glen Ellyn. Both were hospitalized, and Washington-Steel, the drive, died from his injuries.

The girl told her mother about the assault the next day, Simonton said.

Police received DNA test results from the Illinois State Police Crime Lab earlier this month, Simonton said.

Authorities say Whitley made verbal and written statements to police indicating he knew the girl was not a willing participant in the events that night, Simonton said.

Whitley next appears in court on March 3.