A high school senior was caught on a remote learning livestream sexually molesting a Chicago first grader on Thursday, prosecutors said.
Catrell A. Walls, 18, has been charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim under 13 and appeared for a bond hearing Saturday afternoon, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The victim, a 7-year-old girl, told investigators that the assault wasn’t the first time Walls had attacked her.
“The victim disclosed ‘he made me put my lips on (him) and this has happened before, and I don’t want my daddy to know, it’s a secret,’’’ Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Andreana Turano said in court.
Other students and the teacher saw the victim forced to perform oral sex on Walls during a break in their remote class at about 3:30 p.m. The teacher had told students to mute themselves and turn off their cameras. The girl muted her computer but left the video running.
As alarmed students asked, “What’s going on, what’s happening?” the teacher called out for students to “Log off! Log off!” and called out the girl’s name, telling her to turn off her video. The teacher told police she saw Walls close the computer, and she called police, the school principal, and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Officers arrested Walls when the victim, who was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital for an evaluation, identified him.
Turano told the court on Saturday that Walls began crying as he was arrested.
“I don’t know why,” he said, according to the attorney. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Walls was out on bail on an aggravated unlawful use of a weapon charge, Turano said, and is due back in court on that charge on November 30. The judge on Saturday ordered no bail for the sexual assault charge and ordered him back in court on October 19.
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