CHICAGO — Prosecutors refused to file felony charges against a man accused of groping and trying to disrobe a 17-year-old boy inside a Chicago park restroom, according to a CPD arrest report.
The boy was at Touhy Park, 7351 North Clark, around 5:30 p.m. on June 18, when a man grabbed him inside the park men’s room, according to CPD records. The man touched the boy’s torso and stomach and grabbed the teen’s private parts with his hands.
He pushed the boy into a bathroom stall and tried to remove the boy’s shorts while motioning “shhh” with his finger to warn the boy to stay quiet, a CPD arrest report said.
The teen later participated in a photo line-up and identified Rogelio Avila, 55, as the man he encountered in the restroom, according to the report. The document does not say why detectives included Avila in the photo array.
Avila, who lives about three blocks from the park, was arrested last Friday evening after he walked into the Rogers Park (24th) District police station and asked why cops were looking for him at his house earlier in the day, the report said.
Officers asked prosecutors to approve felony charges of criminal sexual abuse, but the Cook County state’s attorney’s office rejected them. So, police filed two counts of misdemeanor battery against Avila instead. He was released from the police station on his own recognizance.
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