Chicago police officer charged with inappropriately touching 3 women

CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) - A Chicago police officer has been charged with touching three women without their consent while on duty over the past two years.

Officer Corey Deanes, 47, was arrested Tuesday and charged with three felony counts of official misconduct and one felony count of aggravated battery in a public place, according to a statement from Chicago police. He is also charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery.

Deanes is accused of making “inappropriate physical contact” with three women on three separate occasions between Aug. 28, 2017, and July 13, 2018, police said. All three victims positively identified him during the investigation.

Deanes pulled over a 23-year-old woman for making an illegal turn about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 28, 2017, in the 2500 block of North Clark Street, according to Cook County court records.

He commented on the woman’s physique during the traffic stop, asked for her phone number and threatened to write her a ticket if she didn’t give it to him, prosecutors said. After she wrote her number down in Deanes’ note pad, he hugged her against her will and touched her buttocks.

The woman called 911 when she got back to her Oak Park home, but was too afraid to answer the door when officers arrived, prosecutors said. When she went to a Chicago police station with her father to file a report the next day, police learned Deanes never ran a name check on her license or registration during the traffic stop.

The second incident happened about 3 a.m. on July 1, 2018, when Deanes responded to a 911 call from a 29-year-old woman who reported a homeless person sitting on her doorstep in the 600 block of West Barry Avenue, according to court records.

She left the immediate area to call and returned home to find Deanes outside and the other person gone, prosecutors said. As he spoke with the woman, Deanes “expressed interest” in her outfit, “taking hold of her wrist and extending her arm so that the outer layer she was wearing exposed her wrist, shorts and tank top underneath.”

When Deanes asked ther why she’d been out so late, she told him she was working and mentioned her rent money, prosecutors said. Deanes then “began searching [the woman’s] person for her rent money, putting his finger in the front right pocket of her shorts and pulling it open.”

When she tried to end the encounter by saying “good night” and buzzing herself into her apartment, Deanes asked which unit she lived in, according to court records. She gave him a fake answer out of fear for her safety and reported the incident to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability three days later.

The third incident happened about 12:15 a.m. on July 13, 2018, when a 22-year-old woman was walking home alone near Clark Street and Fullerton Avenue, prosecutors said. As she opened door, Deanes drove up behind her in a police car, called her a “pretty little thing” and asked why she was walking alone.

He got out of the squad car, hugged the woman and asked her to go on a date with him, prosecutors said. She gave him her phone number, but commented that he was a police officer and backed away from him.

When Deanes asked if she was scared, she “laughed and stated she was going inside the building,” prosecutors said. When she got inside, she received a call from an unknown number, which she didn’t answer. She then called the Town Hall District police station to report the incident.

Deanes, who lives in Irving Park on the Northwest Side, was ordered held on $200,000 bail during a hearing Wednesday at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. His next court date was set for May 15.

Deanes was an officer for CPD from 2005 until he was stripped of his police powers on July 24, 2018 as a result of the investigation, prosecutors and CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

He has been on desk duty since then but will be suspended without pay now that he is facing felony charges, Guglielmi said.

“The allegations against Corey Deanes are egregious and if proven, they are an insult to everyone of us that dedicates our lives to public service,” CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson said in a statement.

“This investigation was conducted with the full cooperation from victims by CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs and is a testament to our ability to police ourselves,” Johnson said. “There is no place in this department for illegal activity and I won’t stand for it.”