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Sex offender pleads guilty to trespassing at Elmhurst school

A sex offender who was at the center of a Lake Park High School football controversy in 2019 has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing at an Elmhurst elementary school.

Frank J. Battaglia, 74, of the 300 block of West Glenwood Drive in Bloomingdale, was sentenced to one year of conditional discharge on Nov. 29, DuPage County court records show.

Battaglia was charged in August 2020 with felony child sex offender in a school zone. Authorities alleged that at 1:29 p.m. on Feb. 7, 2020, Battaglia was in Emerson Elementary School, 400 West Ave., Elmhurst.

He had pleaded guilty in 1992 to criminal sexual abuse of a teenage girl and was sentenced to probation. The charge alleged he inappropriately touched the girl in August 1991 in Bensenville.

Battaglia was a volunteer coach for the Lake Park High School football program. In 2019, Lake Park High School District 108 removed the head football coach because he told an assistant to take Battaglia's name off a list submitted to the human resources department for a criminal-background check. The school's athletic director and principal also were disciplined.

The district requires background checks for all volunteers.

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