Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham In Illinois Facing Criminal Investigation For Sexual Assault And Harassment

Victim filed a sexual assault complaint with the Lake County State's Attorney's Office and the Illinois State Police because the Waukegan Police Department wouldn't take it when she approached an officer on duty twice at the front desk, according to the victim.

By H. Nelson Goodson

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

July 16. 2019

Waukegan, Illinois- On Tuesday, the Lake County State's Attorney's Office in Illinois confirmed that they had received a sexual assault complaint and forwarded it to the Lake County Sheriff's Department and the Illinois State Police to investigate the complaint filed by Margaret Carrasco, a well known local community activist and immigrant rights advocate alleging that she was sexually assaulted by Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham on Saturday, July 13, 2019, as she was leaving the City of Waukegan Scoop event. According to the sexual assault complaint, Carrasco claims, as she was driving away from the Scoop event with her husband, Tomas, who was the passenger in her vehicle, that Mayor Cunningham ran in front of her vehicle and she had to stop in order to avoid hitting him. Cunningham apparently then went to the driver's side window and began to talk to Carrasco about the success of the event and called for a nearby photographer to take a photo of both of them. Cunningham reached inside the vehicle to grab Carrasco in order to force her to get close to him and then said, "I gotta kiss you", while her husband looked on.

"Cunningham called Kenneth Smith over again saying, "You gotta get this shot - I need this shot". Cunningham gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then I speeded off in my car"...Mayor Sam Cunningham publicly sexual harrassed me and assaulted me by his unwanted touching, kissing and grabbing me...He thinks just because he is Mayor, he can forcibly touch, kiss and grab any female," according to Carrasco's complaint. 

Carrasco says that she went to the Waukegan Police Department to file a complaint twice and the officer at the front desk just walked away and never returned. Carrasco was left with no choice, but to sent and file her complaint with the Lake County State's Attorney's Office via e-mail and Cc, Waukegan Police Chief Wayne Walles who later accepted the complaint via e-mail and filed it.

Carrasco had recently requested publicly for Mayor Cunningham to make it public where he stood on Trump's mass ICE raids and if he would prohibit local police from assisting ICE in Waukegan, just like the Mayor of Chicago prohibited police to assist ICE in local raids. Cunningham never responded to Carrasco.

Carrasco did learned and exposed that the Waukegan Police Department (WPD) had assigned Officer Monty Hall to assist the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in detaining and processing undocumented residents under a fedral grant funding (loop hole), which according to the ICE website, there are no State of Illinois law enforcement agencies or county sheriff departments in partnership with ICE under the profiling and discriminatory 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) ICE program, which allows certain trained police officers and sheriff deputies under ICE supervision to enforce federal immigration laws.

Officer Hall later resigned after it became public that the WPD had an officer assisting ICE in detaining undocumented residents. So far, the WPD hasn't replaced Hall with another officer to assist ICE and the WPD hasn't released any information to residents, which federal funding authorized an officer to assist ICE.

By police and sheriff departments having a 287(g) partnership with ICE, it creates a public safety issue in communities simply because undocumented residents won't report crimes or become witnesses of a crime for fear of being detained and deporte

Update (7/20/2019): HNNUSA has learned that Waukegan Police Chief Wayne Walles in an unprecedented act has sealed the Carrasco's complaint. According to Chief Walles, the Waukegan Police Department will not handle the Margaret Carrasco's sexual assault complaint investigation, "Since it is being sent to another agency it was locked,  In order to not compromise the investigation precautions were taken."