This article was produced for the local propublicic report network in association with the Invisible Institute and was published with the Chicago Sun-Times and Wbez. Register for shipments to get stories like this as soon as they are published.
A former Chicago police officer declared himself guilty on Tuesday for charges for serious crimes in relation to two incidents of inappropriate sexual behavior that involve female colleagues, one that occurred while he was at the Police Training Academy and another in a police precert.
The case against Eric Tabb stood out in an invisible investigation of the Institute-Propólica who discovered that Chicago police officers have often not strongly investigated the accusations of the officers of the city of inappropriate sexual conduct.
Tabb, 35, declared himself guilty of two aggravated battery charges in a public place, a serious class 3 crime, and was sentenced to 30 months of probation. As part of a guilt agreement, tabb charges were reduced and asked to enroll in a program of sexual criminals.
Tabb, who was arrested in December 2023 and dismissed, is one of the 14 officers accused of sexual assault in the last decade, who found the bones accused at least once before the inappropriate sexual behavior. The research archives show that five of the 17 women in their academy class have given similar accounts of inappropriate sexual contact that involves Tabb.
A team of reporters from the invisible institute reviewed more than 300 complaints of inappropriate sexual behavior and aggression against Chicago officers. Complaints were minimized or ignored, sometimes allowing officers to abuse again and again. The Chicago Police Department said in a statement for that story that “it takes all accusations of sexual aggression seriously, including accusations against CPD members.”
Duration an hearing before the Cook County Judge James B. No Nocer, the two victims of Tabb, both police officers, read impact statements in the Court.
“The women for whom I speak today, including myself, were women who trusted Eric Tabb, who spent eight monhs with him forming that confidence in a police academy. As of today, there is hope that all the affected women can put this in the past, one of the past, one of the past, one of the past, one of the past”, one of the past. “
The judge said he accepted the pleas agreement to allow women to leave the cases behind.
“The only reason I followed this agreement is for the victims,” said Nocy, who warned Tabb that he will send to prison if he does not follow the terms of his freedom. “Everyone moves the closure. They want to leave this behind. I’m going to watch this closely.”
The collection of votes of two incidents. In a birthday party in August 2023 in a Wrigleyville bar, Tabb supposedly approached a female recruit on the dance floor, whispered that he wanted to have sex with her, touched his chest and crotch, and then grabbed her. Tabb was accused of two positions of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of that incident.
The second incident took place after the call list inside a police enclosure in December 2023. Tabb supposedly touched a Fulow Probational and police officer several times when he got up to adjust his service belt, according to judicial records. She had attended the training academy with him.
In a previous hearing, prosecutors had asked Nocy to include two additional incidents that were not accused but that Tabb described as part of a pattern or behavior. Tabb attended a “stars party”, an unofficial celebration for the graduate recruits that received their flagship number. At the party, a witness told the researchers that he saw Tabb grab the crotch of another female recruit. That same night, Tabb touched the buttocks of a second recruit, according to interviews with police investigators and judicial records.
Alexus Byrd-Maxey was the first recruit to inform Tabb a few months after she and Tabb began in the academy, but her accusation never became part of the case of the Prosecutor’s Office. According to Byrd-Maxey, he was tilting on the computer of a classmate in March 2023 when Tabb walked behind her. She said she felt her hands on the pattern and her body tight again.
Byrd-Maxey tried to inform Tabb several times, but was not successful. The research archives obtained by the invisible and propublic institute show that Tabb told other recruits that Byrd-Maxey reacted exaggeratedly and that he had only hit her on the shoulder to reach her seat. Other recruits supported their history. Almost three weeks later, there was a confrontation in the class in which he allegedly told Tabb to “close his butt” and supposedly used gang -related language. Byrd-Maxey denied those accusations, but was fired.
Tabb and his lawyer, Dan Herbert, declined to comment, but Herbert had said that Tabb was innocent and blamed Byrd-Maxey for the claims of the other women.
While Byrd-Maxey could not attend the audience, his mother, Jauntaunne Byrd-Horne, was in the courtroom and then told his daughter about the plea agreement. Byrd-Maxey said it was disappointed.
“He has a grace, again and again. Let him be a free man,” he said. “I feel that they are not serious bee tasks, again.”
Sebastián Hidalgo contributed reports.
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