Special education teacher indicted
A Schaumburg junior high teacher has been indicted by a grand jury on charges he mistreated three special education students, prosecutors announced in court Friday.
Patrick McCarthy, 30, faces three counts of aggravated battery and one count of unlawful restraint stemming from allegations he pushed a student face-first into a metal cabinet, tied a student to a chair with a jump rope and forced another student to don a weighted vest and jump for 40 minutes on a trampoline.
The incidents took place this school year and involved three autistic boys, ages 11 and 12, officials say.
McCarthy had supervised about a half-dozen autistic students as a special education teacher at Robert Frost Junior High in Schaumburg.
He now is on paid administrative leave and will be kept out of the classroom as the criminal case proceeds, Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 spokeswoman Terri McHugh said.
This is McCarthy's third year at Frost, and the district previously fielded no complaints about him, McHugh said. The abuse was reported to police by aides who said they had noticed McCarthy becoming increasingly agitated and impatient, prosecutors said.
On Friday, McCarthy -- who posted $50,000 to get out of jail after his September arrest -- appeared in court with family. Under conditions of his bond, he is prohibited from interaction with the students or the school.
He will be allowed contact with others under the age of 18, per a Friday request from his lawyer, Thomas Breen, who said McCarthy has young family members.
Breen said he hasn't yet begun an investigation but has spoken to people who called McCarthy a "wonderful, wonderful guy who had a very, very difficult job."
"Everyone stresses how difficult his job is, physically and emotionally" Breen said.
McCarthy is accused of several separate incidents. In one case, prosecutors say, he threw cookies and used an obscenity after a student took a treat without asking first.
In another, he became agitated with a 12-year-old who can't talk and shoved him face-first into a metal cabinet, prosecutors said.
Another time, they say, McCarthy made a child put on a weighted vest and jump for 40 minutes on a trampoline as he cried to get off. The child was bruised afterward, prosecutors said, and suffered a seizure that night. McCarthy also is accused of tying a student to his chair with a jump rope and pressing him up against a wall once the student had wriggled free.
Weighted vests and trampolines can be used to treat autistic children, but officials allege McCarthy went too far.
He is due back in court in Rolling Meadows on Nov. 12.