Crystal Lake private basketball coach charged with sexual assault
A suburban basketball skills coach is charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy he had been training, officials say.
Diamond Hood, 24, of Mundelein, a former skills coach with Pure Sweat Basketball in Crystal Lake, was arrested Dec. 12 on charges of criminal sexual assault stemming from a Dec. 4 meeting with the teen, according to court documents.
Hood is being held at the Lake County jail on $500,000 bail.
Pure Sweat Chief Operating Officer Rich Czeslawski said Tuesday that Hood has been terminated for violating his contract. Czeslawski emailed parents and athletes last weekend to inform them Hood was no longer working for Pure Sweat.
"We were contacted by Mundelein police and told that (Hood) had been arrested and the charges were related to sexual assault," Czeslawski said. "Regardless of whether he's cleared or not, the situations are evident that were in violation of his contract, so we're not taking any chances with that. We have terminated his contractor agreement. He no longer has access to Pure Sweat, nor has any affiliation with us."
Czeslawski's email to those who had been coached by Hood assured parents that Pure Sweat had followed proper procedure before hiring Hood, who coached many top local high school and college players, helping them with their skills.
"We did the industry standard background checks, we did reference checks, we did everything you're supposed to do," Czeslawski said. "We did our due diligence on him and there were never any warning signs. No one ever said, 'Hey, that was strange to me,' or anything like that. Now, he made a mistake, we got rid of him and we're going to move on. That's kind of our message moving forward."
In his email, Czeslawski said he believed it was an isolated case. Hood had been a private basketball coach for the minor victim for five months.
Hood is charged with: aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim between the ages of 13 and 18 by a person in a position of trust; aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim at least 13, but under 17 years of age by a person at least five years older than the victim; traveling to meet a minor; and exploitation/exposing organs to a child.