LITTLE VILLAGE — The former dean of a Little Village high school sexually assaulted a student multiple times starting when she was 15, prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
Brian Crowder, 40, has been charged with criminal sexual assault. Prosecutors said he abused the former student during her sophomore, junior and senior years at Little Village Lawndale High School’s Social Justice before she cut off contact in 2015. The former student is now 24 and reported the abuse in September 2021, prosecutors said.
Crowder was ordered held on $75,000 bond.
The sexual abuse started in 2013, prosecutors said.
Crowder asked the student, then a sophomore, for her Snapchat username and started messaging her and sending her videos of himself, prosecutors said.
Between summer 2013 and summer of 2015, Crowder brought the then-teen to his house consistently and assaulted her five or six times a month, prosecutors said.
Sometime during the girl’s senior year, she told a teacher about the abuse, prosecutors said. The teacher told the student to report it, prosecutors said. The girl didn’t, saying she didn’t want her name to be in the media or have others finding out about it, prosecutors said.
CPS’s handbook on student protection dictates employees are mandated reporters, meaning they must alert the Department of Children and Family Services if they receive an allegation of abuse. A district spokesperson did not answer a question about whether that teacher reported the abuse to the proper officials.
The student told authorities she ended contact with Crowder in September 2015, but he tried to contact her again in 2019, prosecutors said. When she didn’t respond, Crowder found out where she worked and called her there, prosecutors said.
The woman filed a report in September 2021, recounting the abuse to a police detective and a prosecutor, officials said. Crowder was arrested in March but released without charges at the time, prosecutors said.
Investigators obtained the woman’s old Snapchat messages dating as far back as when she was 15, uncovering evidence of a “sexual in nature relationship” with Crowder and coordination for Crowder to pick up the girl and bring her to his home, prosecutors said.
Crowder was arrested Tuesday.
A defense attorney said Crowder lives in the Belmont Cragin area, and grew up in Humboldt Park.
He’s due back in court Sept. 20 and ordered not to have any contact with anyone younger than 18.
Online records from CPS show Crowder was a guidance counselor assistant at the school from 2013-2021.
CPS confirmed Crowder hasn’t worked at the school since September 2021, when officials learned of the allegation against him and conducted their own investigation that resulted in his termination, a spokesperson said.
School officials sent a letter to the Social Justice school community Wednesday, alerting them to the charge Crowder faces, the spokesperson said.