Senate Republican Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove) and Senate Republican Caucus Whip Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) filed an official resolution calling for an independent audit by the Illinois Auditor General into serious accusations of violence against children under the state’s care at Aunt Martha’s Integrated Care Center in Chicago, as well as what appears to be an attempt by the Pritzker Administration to falsify documents related to investigations.
A recent Injustice Watch investigative report outlined thousands of accusations of violence, including serious allegations of sexual and physical abuse of children under the care of the state-funded center.
In 2019, Pritzker hired a top executive of Aunt Martha’s, Marc Smith, to serve as the Director of DCFS, despite public questions about conflicts of interest. Smith went on to sign a no-bid contract to A-Alert, a security company that Aunt Martha’s chief operating officer had raised concerns about in August 2023 due to allegations of inappropriate conduct.
Despite these significant concerns and allegations of abuse at the facility, the Pritzker Administration continued to employ the security company that, according to the Comptroller’s Website, has received more than $7.3 million in taxpayer funds since 2022 – at least $6.5 million of which have been paid out after the first complaint was lodged a little over a year ago. The most recent payment was in August of this year.
This spring, WGN reported that Antonio Hopkins, an employee of A-Alert Security was arrested on four counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and is now a fugitive after failing to appear at an August court hearing.
CBS reported that another staffer, Trulon Henry, was charged with three counts of criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, and predatory criminal sexual assault stemming from crimes he allegedly committed while employed at Aunt Martha’s Integrated Care Center this summer. He fled and was apprehended on the east coast in July and sent back to Chicago.
When the center was finally shut down by DCFS this June, a long-time DCFS staffer was accused of trying to persuade center officials to backdate critical child protection plans amid an independent investigation by the Office of the Executive Inspector General. When asked about the attempted cover-up, a DCFS spokesperson acknowledged the attempt, saying that the employee “panicked.”
Senate Resolution 1229 calls for an audit outside of the executive branch to review the abuse, background checks, staff hiring, the backdating of protective plans to determine the extent to which contracts were monitored, whether staff were properly screened and hired, and whether all allegations of abuse and mistreatment were properly investigated.
The resolution also asks for an examination of the spending of State funds at Aunt Martha’s and A-Alert Security Services Inc; and whether Illinois State officials acted outside of the law regarding the allegations of abuse and oversight.