Chicago — More than eight years after a Bucktown woman reported that she had been sexually assaulted in her apartment, prosecutors on Friday filed felony charges against a Chicago man who was first linked to the crime by DNA evidence in 2016.
Records show that Chicago police arrested the man on September 23 and tried to charge him with the sexual assault after they learned that DNA recovered from a condom found at the woman’s Bucktown apartment had been linked to a similar crime under investigation in DuPage County.
But prosecutors in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office refused to file charges against him, and he was released the next day, according to public records.
On December 9, Chicago investigators learned that DNA from the Bucktown crime scene had been linked to a second sexual assault investigation in DuPage County. Armed with the mounting evidence, CPD detectives returned to Cook County prosecutors and finally won the approval of felony charges.
Eight years
On Thursday, Chicago police officers arrested the man, 40-year-old Keith Frazier, to face charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and felony theft in the 2014 Bucktown case.
A Cook County assistant state’s attorney detailed the allegations and the years-long investigation during his bail hearing on Friday afternoon.
In July 2014, the woman, now 37, went out for drinks with friends. While bar-hopping, the group ran into Frazier, whom the woman knew from social gatherings, prosecutors said.
After ordering a drink, the woman began to feel woozy and told a friend that she was going to go home. Frazier offered to give her a ride and took her to her house, according to the allegations.
According to prosecutors, the woman lost consciousness and has no recollection of what happened until she awoke the next morning, naked on her couch, with a used condom lying next to her on the coffee table. She knew she had been sexually assaulted and immediately called her boyfriend to report the attack, prosecutors said.
She discovered that $6,000 and her wallet were missing, too. The woman filed a police report the same day and went to a hospital for treatment. There, a sexual assault kit was gathered, and blood was drawn for a toxicology test.
About 18 months later, in January 2016, laboratory results came back on the condom. Two DNA profiles were found — the woman’s and another that Frazier “could not be excluded” from. But prosecutors on Friday said they did not have the exact statistical likelihood that Frazier was the source of the material.
What happened next is unclear. But more than five years later, in April 2021, Chicago police learned that the second DNA profile on the condom popped up when DuPage County investigators ran a DNA sample from a sexual assault through a database, prosecutors said.
That same day, the Bucktown victim allegedly identified Frazier in a photo line-up.
Chicago police arrested Frazier in September, and he denied any involvement, prosecutors said. CPD released him the next day after prosecutors refused to file charges.
Two months later, on the day before Thanksgiving 2021, investigators received the results of the toxicology test sample that was taken from the Bucktown victim in 2014. She had cocaine metabolite, THC metabolite, ketamine metabolite, and ketamine in her system, the results allegedly showed. Prosecutors on Friday said they did not know if she had knowingly ingested any of the substances.
Another year passed, and on December 9, 2022, Chicago police learned that the second Bucktown DNA profile had popped up when DuPage county investigators ran evidence from another sexual assault through the DNA database.
Prosecutors said the second DuPage case has a “similar set of facts” as the Bucktown attack but provided no specifics of the alleged similarities.
Frazier has four previous felony convictions: two thefts in 2017, use of a forged credit card in Kane County in 2012, and robbery in DuPage County in 2007, according to prosecutors.
His public defender reminded the court that he had not been charged with any wrongdoing in the DuPage County sexual assault cases and may never be. And, the attorney pointed out, prosecutors never accused Frazier of drugging the Bucktown victim.
“At this point, there is not much tying Mr. Frazier to this,” the lawyer argued.
She said Frazier, an Aurora resident, has four children and goes to church often.
Judge Susana Ortiz ordered him to pay a $7,500 bail payment to go home on electronic monitoring. She also held him in lieu of a $1,000 bail payment on a retail theft warrant from Kane County.
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