McHenry-Libertyville water polo alleged sexual assault Title IX complaint, report released

Last November, Libertyville District 128 received notice from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights regarding a Title IX complaint regarding how the district handled an alleged sexual assault during a boys water polo match on May 14, 2015.

The document was released following a Northwest Herald open records request.

"We conducted the evaluation in accordance with OCR's Case Processing Manual to determine whether to open the complaint for investigation," the letter said. "We leave determined that we have the authority to investigate this complaint.

“Specifically, the complaint alleges that the District failed to respond appropriately to a non-District student’s report of sexual assault committed by a District male water polo player during a May 15, 2015 Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Boys’ Water Polo Buffalo Grove Sectional game and, as a result, students, including Student A, were subjected to a sexually hostile environment.”

The letter allowed the district 20 calendar days to respond in full to 21 different areas of information related to how it handled this case and other Title IX complaints.

One of those areas was "With respect to the report of sexual harassment/violence against Student A by Student B during a May 14, 2015 IHSA Boys Water Polo Buffalo Grove Sectional game, describe whether the District has conducted any additional investigations of the incident, any additional investigations of sexual misconduct by Student B, or provided any remedies to Student A. Provide documentation of any investigative or remedial measures and state the dates that these steps were taken."

The Title IX investigation letter closes with notification that "In addition to the information requested above, OCR may need to request additional information and will interview pertinent personnel. During the course of this investigation, we will conduct one or more on-site visits and inay conduct focus groups with parents and staff."

ESPN's "Outside the Lines" profiled the criminal case, which was closed with no charges filed, along with McHenry grad Becca Dabrowski's story on July 17, indicating that both McHenry District 156 and the Illinois High School Association were also named in the case.

McHenry District 156 denied access to any documents in an open records request related to the incident.

"The School District has records that are responsive to the requests but the School District is prohibited from disclosing the records," the public records response read. "Information that identifies students who are currently enrolled or previously enrolled at the School District are prohibited from disclosure under Section 6 of the Illinois School Student Records Act and is exempt from disclosure under Sections 7(1)(a) and 7.5(r) of the FOIA. 105 ILCS 10/6; 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(a); and 5 ILCS 140/7.5(r)."

Libertyville District 128, from a separate open records request, also released the IHSA official's report from the match, including an initial letter on May 15, 2015, from water polo referee Andy Mattson, stating a full report would follow.

"I'll tell you that the officials did not see anything to definitely verify the complaint, but I don't feel that ignoring something like this is an option for me," Mattson's letter said. "If she, her parents or her coach want to make any kind of official complaint (they can always decide later, even if they don't want to now), "Yeah, I'm aware of it, but since I couldn't PROVE it, so I didn't say anything hoping it would go away' is not a position I'm willing to put myself, the other officials, or the IHSA in.

"I'm not out to burn anyone, I don't see any latitude here. I don't want to blindside you and I want to afford you the opportunity to share your perspective if you feel this process needs it."

The officials' report, sent by Mattson on June 10, 2015, had both athletes' names redacted and is, in full, below:

Gentlemen,

As I promised, here is the verbatim text of my description of the events that I am filing with the IHSA -

After Thursday night's (May 14) quarte~nal game between McHenry and Libertyville, official Matt Hochstein pulled me aside and asked my advice about something that happened in the game. After speaking to the officials and the coaches, here is my incident report:

Early in the game, the lone female player in this Sectional, (redacted) came to her bench after being substituted visibly shaken and upset. She indicated to her coach, Craig Fowles, that Libertyville player (redacted), had groped her. (Redacted) has been playing against boys for several years, was used to being physically pushed around and bullied by physically stronger players, and had even previously mentioned to her coach when she had been felt up by players in the past. He indicated that he had never seen her this shaken up, so he assumed the liberties taken were pretty severe. The officials heard the exchange between the player and coach, and watched the players, but did not see anything they could identify as inappropriate contact, with the caveat that 90% of the game is underwater, and that does not mean that it did not happen.

As the teams changed sides at half time, coach Fowles informed Libertyville coach, Ivan Munoz of the issue. Coach Munoz decided it was not the time to get into he said/she said and elected to bench his player for the remainder of the game. Please note that this was NOT in response to any admission of wrong-doing by his player. The rest of the game was very close and competitive, with Libertyville eventually losing by a single goal, so the decision to sit his playerwas not inconsequential.

After the game, Matt spoke to me and I informed him that the matter was serious enough that we needed to file a report and I told him I would do so, but I wanted to speak with both coaches for their perspective first. Since McHenry had advanced, I planned to and did speak wifh Coach Fowles before his game. I sent an email to coach Munoz, informing him that I would be filing a report, regardless of whefher the incident could be definitively substantiated, and offered to include any information he wished to offer. We had a phone conversation on Friday, May 15 before the start of competition.

In addition to telling me that he had immediately removed his player from the game, he wanted to emphasize that he does not coach his players to play in that manner. It should be noted that at the higher levels of the game, including at the international level, even though teams don't have mixed genders, it's not entirely uncommon for players to inappropriately make contact with player in an attempt to provoke a violent or flagrant misconduct foul. Coach Munoz was indicating that this was not what he was teaching his players. He also told me that he spoke with his team and emphasized that there would be no tolerance for thaf kind of behavior, currently or in the future. He also asked me to copy him on the content of my report. I will send him this text, verbatim, without additional comment, and will also copy Coach Fowles.

I did not interview or speak with (redacted) as I feel I am not qualified to conduct an interview into something of this nature, that clearly extends beyond the parameters of water polo play.

On Sunday, May 17, I received an email from Buffalo Grove boys’ athletic director Kip North, who was the head of our sectional, informing me that the McHenry player had filed a formal complaint, and that the Buffalo Grove police department was investigating the matter.