Woman: Maywood cop 'took something from me'
A 36-year-old Bellwood woman testified Wednesday that she "dozed in and out" of consciousness as she was being sexually assaulted by a Maywood police officer in March 2012 in a Villa Park hotel room.
The woman, locked out of her Bellwood home and with no working cellphone in the early morning hours of March 24, 2012, said a marked Maywood squad car was initially a welcome sight.
The woman, along with an Oak Brook police officer, testified that she had been arrested and charged with DUI in Oak Brook at 12:28 a.m. that day after her blood alcohol content level registered .186 - more than twice the legal limit.
A short time later, the woman's boyfriend picked her up from the police station and drove her home. Angry with her for getting the DUI, she testified he dropped her off outside her home and sped away.
Locked out and with a cellphone that wasn't charged, the woman said she began walking to her brother's Maywood home when she was approached by Maywood police officer Deon Sams in his marked police SUV.
She testified Sams drove her to her brother's home and waited for her. After no one answered at the home, Sams drove her to a local motel and gave her $100 for a room.
"She went from feeling safe with the officer to realizing something terrible was going to happen," Assistant State's Attorney Ann Celine O'Hallaren said during opening arguments.
The motel had no vacancy so Sams offered to use his lunch break to take the woman somewhere else. He drove to the Maywood police station and switched out his squad for his personal vehicle. He then drove to a hotel in the 0-10 block of West Roosevelt Road in Villa Park. The woman testified she dozed off during the drive and woke up at the hotel when Sams parked the car and went to the office to get her a room.
"I went in the room and sat on the bed and slipped my shoes off," she said. "He tried to kiss me on my mouth but I turned away. He started kissing my neck and I said 'No. Stop.'"
She said she dozed off and, when she woke, Sams was sexually assaulting her. She dozed off again and then woke a second time.
"I next remember him on top of me," she said. "It felt like he took something from me."
A short time later, she said, she went to the washroom to clean up and Sams, back in his uniform, left. After he departed, she locked the door and crawled back in bed to "sleep it off, forget it had happened."
Around 8 a.m. she woke and said she began searching the room for clues about where she was so she could get a ride home. She later underwent a sexual assault exam at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago.
Sams' attorney, Deputy Chief Public Defender Brian Jacobs, said the woman's account of the events is all true, up until the pair entered the hotel room.
"My client had consensual sex with (the woman), plain and simple," Jacobs said. "It's probably a bad idea for our client to do while on duty, but it's not a crime."
Jacobs said the woman, instead of sleeping, flirted with Sams during the drive to the hotel, telling him how attractive she found him and complaining about her longtime boyfriend.
He said after they had sex, Sams and the woman exchanged phone numbers and Sams promised to pick her up in the morning, after his 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift was over. But he never called or showed up.
"He blew her off," Jacobs said.
Maywood police Cmdr. Sonya Horn testified Wednesday that Sams never had permission to leave his jurisdiction in Maywood, even if on lunch, and he never had permission to swap out his personal car.
She also confirmed Sams was put on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation, on April 5, 2012, and that Sams resigned from the department one week later, on April 12, 2012.
The bench trial resumes at 10 a.m. today before Judge George Bakalis in courtroom 4006.