CHICAGO — Quinten Hawthorne, who worked as a Chicago Public Schools vendor for three years even after two young girls accused him of sexual abuse, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for assaulting those children plus another seven years for later sexually abusing an elementary school student on the North Side.
Judge Angela Munari-Petrone ordered him to register as a sex offender for life and to undergo an evaluation to see if he should be involuntarily committed as a sexually violent predator when his prison term expires in May 2039.
Chicago police records show that a mother filed a criminal sexual assault report against Hawthorne, now 26, on behalf of her two daughters in December 2015.
The woman’s 9-year-old daughter told investigators that Hawthorne touched her private areas and had sex with her between February and December 2015, according to a CPD arrest report.
Her 10-year-old girl accused Hawthorne of kissing her neck and touching her private areas on multiple occasions during the same timeframe, the report said.
While the girls’ allegations sat unprosecuted for years, Hawthorne went to work for a vendor that provided after-school and recess monitoring services at Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School, 3730 North Oakley.
While working at the school in November 2018, Hawthorne sexually abused a 12-year-old student. The child told a school staff member that Hawthorne pinned her against the wall and rubbed his body against her several times during a two-week period, a CPD spokesperson said.
Only after the Bell student stepped forward did authorities charge Hawthorne with assaulting the sisters in 2015.
“The Chicago Police Department did not contact the State’s Attorney’s Office in 2015 to seek charges against this defendant, nor was State’s Attorney [Kim] Foxx in office at that time,” a state’s attorney’s spokesperson told us in 2019. “In 2019, while investigating [the Bell School case], we reviewed the incidents and added charges relating to those allegations.”
A CPD spokesperson at the time said the 2015 cases were not pursued “department Monday said the earlier cases were “not presented in a more timely manner “due to the timeline to process evidence. There were also identity issues.”
A source said the offender in the 2015 cases was listed by different names. Those identity challenges were resolved quickly after the Bell student lodged new accusations.
Chicago Public Schools banned Hawthorne from its facilities immediately after the Bell School allegations were made, a district spokesperson said in 2019.
This month, Hawthorne pleaded guilty to criminal sexual assault of a child under 13 and criminal sexual abuse of a child under 13 in the case involving the sisters, court records show.
Judge Munari-Petrone handed him concurrent sentences of 24 years and seven years, respectively.
In the Bell School assault, he received another seven years for aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child under 13.