Two Chicago police officers under investigation for allegedly playing strip poker with a young woman before sexually assaulting her have been charged, authorities said late Wednesday.
In a news release, police said that the patrolmen in the Town Hall District in the Lakeview neighborhood, were each charged with criminal sexual assault and official misconduct. Police did not release the officers' names. A spokesman could not say why the department wasn't releasing the names of the criminally-charged officers.
Police sources have identified the 38-year-old officers as Juan Vasquez and Paul Clavijo. Both officers were stripped of their police powers after the explosive allegations came to light.
"The alleged criminal actions of these officers infuriate the thousands of honorable, proud officers that make up the Chicago Police Department, who have taken an oath to protect the citizens of Chicago," police officials said in the release.
The alleged sexual assault took place at the woman's Rogers Park apartment on March 30.
The uniformed officers, driving a marked police SUV, had offered the 22-year-old woman a ride as she walked near Wrigley Field, crying and upset after drinking and arguing with a male friend, according to a police report.
According to the report, the woman said she accepted, and while they were en route to her residence, she had sex with one officer in a passenger seat. At her apartment, the three of them played strip poker, and she again had sex with one of the officers.
But she told police she began to feel intimidated and was afraid to refuse their sexual advances, according to the report. She said she pounded on the wall to get her neighbor's attention and later got up and ran screaming out of the apartment. A neighbor saw her and called police about 3 a.m. The woman was treated at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston.
Another neighbor contacted by the Tribune said he opened his door after hearing the commotion and saw a naked man running down the hall and another man who might have been wearing a police uniform.
After news of the allegation came to light in late March, interim police Superintendent Terry Hillard stripped both officers of their powers and called the allegations "heinous criminal activity."
A third officer who works the same overnight shift as the other two, was also stripped of his powers after he was found to have had a previous complaint lodged against him in connection with an incident involving another woman one night when he was partnering with one of the other accused officers.