Testimony Details Sex with Teen, During Trial of Ex-Glenbard West Football Player

A former football player admitted to having sex with a girl on Jan. 29, 2010, according to a statement he gave law enforcement officials on Feb. 8, 2011.

Demarco Whitley, 18 at the time of the incident, is now facing five counts of sexual assault. During the second day of his bench trial, prosecutors not only linked Whitley to the incident with DNA evidence but by prior statements he made to police and Assistant State’s Attorney Melanie Fialkowski.

Fialkowski read aloud Whitley’s signed statement, in which Whitley recounted an incident in which he and former teammate Pierre Washington-Steel forced the Rolling Meadows girl, who was 15 at the time, to perform oral sex in a church parking lot. According Whitley's statement, Washington-Steel grabbed the girl by the back of the head, forcing her into his lap. During that time, Whitley told Fialkowski that’s when he pulled down her leggings, put on a condom and started to have sex with her.

Whitley’s attorney, Donna Rotunno, tried to pick apart the state’s case because the girl told varying accounts to nurses and police.  

Rotunno said the girl never mentioned to police that Washington-Steel had previously exposed himself to her while in her home. Rotunno also said police never knew she told the youths while in the car that she had a boyfriend, and Rotunno said the girl never said no.

But Rolling Meadows Police Detective Mike Fior testified that Whitley said the girl seemed “scared and reluctant.” And, Arlington’s Northwest Community Hospital Nurse Ann Schmidt said the girl told her the boys would not take her home unless she did what they wanted. At one point, Schmidt testified that the car's engine was turned off and the doors were then locked.

Schmidt said the boys got “aggressive” and forced the girl to lay on the reclined passenger seat. That’s when Washington-Steel made her perform oral sex while Whitley penetrated her from behind after she saw him grab a condom from his wallet. While performing oral sex the nurse said the girl told the two, “Get off of me.”

“During that he ejaculated, or from the defendant’s own word ‘he nut,’” Fior said. After that Fior was told by the girl that Whitley threw the condom out the window, and then had sex with her again, sodomizing her. However, the girl just told the nurse that something “happened down there” but she didn’t know what.

Then she made a phone call to a friend and Washington-Steel drove her to that friends’ home.

Whitley then asked for oral sex. Rotunno made it a point to emphasize that Whitley asked—not forced—the girl to perform oral sex, which she did.

Rotunno said the boys asked her which way to get to the home of one of her friends, and she provided them with directions to the house. They took her there.

Rotunno said a statement Whitley made to police was not included in a report. Detective Fior testified that a previous report neglected to mention that Whitley said he could not remember the night of the incident.

On the same night as the incident with the girl, Whitley and Washington-Steel were in a car accident on Swift Road near Glen Ellyn, which resulted in Washington-Steel’s death and hospitalization for Whitley, which Rotunno says accounts for why Whitley couldn’t remember the night.

Rotunno continued trying to pick apart the state’s case; she asked Fior if the girl’s leggings were ripped. Rotunno also asked the nurse to detail how the girl was forced to perform the sexual acts. The nurse could only say things got “aggressive” but could not specify how they forced her, beyond the statement that the doors were locked. Fior testified that the leggings had a hole near the thigh prior to the incident but that there was no damage to the clothing.

The hearing resumes tomorrow when Whitley and his sister are expected to take the stand.