Avis LaVelle, president of the Chicago Park District board, has resigned her post amid the ongoing fallout from the scandal surrounding the sexual abuse of lifeguards and other employees in the district. NBC 5’s Mary Ann Ahern has the latest details on an evolving story.
A former Chicago Park District lifeguard supervisor charged with having sex with an underage lifeguard this summer also had sex with another underage lifeguard some eight years ago, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Mauricio Ramirez was arrested after the second lifeguard, now 24, went to police and said he had sex with her during the summers of 2013 and 2014 when she was 16 and 17 and Ramirez was in his mid-20s, according to a court document.
Last month, Ramirez was charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old lifeguard he supervised this past summer, and had been free after posting $500,000 bond.
On Tuesday, Ramirez was taken into custody at his home in Pilsen by the Great Lakes Fugitive Task Force, according to court records. Judge Mary Marubio on Wednesday set his bond at $50,000 on the new charges.
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Ramirez faces counts of criminal sexual assault and aggravated sexual abuse that occurred in September 2014 in the 5700 block of South Lake Shore Drive, which corresponds to the Museum of Science and Industry and the 57th Street Beach.
Prosecutors said he first met the victim at a training session in 2013, when she was 16 and Ramirez was 24 and her supervisor. The court document states that the teen and Ramirez were at a party and Ramirez followed her out after she became heavily intoxicated and tried to leave.
Ramirez repeatedly offered to drive her home, then carried her to his car and drove her to a motel where they had sex, prosecutors said.
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Ramirez would have sex with the girl in Ramirez’s car or at motels over the course of the summer until she stopped working as a lifeguard, prosecutors said. Ramirez started having sex with her again the next summer but it stopped in the fall.
On Sept. 13 of this year, Ramirez was placed on unpaid emergency suspension by the park district “pending the outcome of an (inspector general) investigation,” according to personnel records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Ramirez resigned on Oct. 4, saying he was “pursuing other career opportunities.”
The woman in the second case went to police this fall after a friend showed her a news report about Ramirez being charged with assaulting a 16-year-old.
