Crime & Safety
Former Burr Ridge Middle School Teacher Accused of Raping Student
The new allegation comes shortly after revelations of Spiro Lempesis' sexual relationship with one of his players as a coach at Concordia University.
A lawsuit was filed on Friday in Chicago federal court claiming that in the mid-1990s, a then-Burr Ridge Middle School teacher and baseball coach repeatedly threatened, drugged, fondled and raped a then-13-year-old plaintiff, the Doings Burr Ridge reports.
According to the paper, the suit, filed by former student Adam Kelley, names Spiro Lempesis, Burr Ridge Middle School and District 180 as defendants, saying that Lempesis "fondl[ed] the Plaintiff and brutally rap[ed] Plaintiff on several occasions," as threatening him into silence with a knife and a gun, and seeks more than $600,000 in damages.
The suit claims the plaintiff was one of several students victimized by Lempesis.
In naming the school and district as defendants, the suit, according to The Doings, says that "allowing a 13 year old boy to be on a softball team and taken to games and practices and to be exposed to a person that sexually molests him is something that does not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence.”
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The paper reached Lempesis by phone, who said that the allegations were "obviously complete lies, complete garbage... All I know is it never happened.”
Lempesis was fired from D180 in June 1996, ostensibly as part of staff reductions, the paper said, though even then there were rumors that inappropriate conduct was involved.
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The former teacher and former Concordia University baseball coach has been dealing with several allegations of questionable sexual activities with young men and boys, ABC7 has previously reported.
Concordia University fired Lempesis in June 2010, the station said, and later investigated him after a June 2012 incident where he was found in a car in Elmhurst with an underage teenage boy, though no charges were filed because police said the boy had lied about his age.
Then in May, a former Concordia player, Anthony Collaro, claimed that as an 18-year-old player he had been coerced into a sexual relationship with Lempesis, his coach, in exchange for Lempesis pitching him to pro scouts; he is suing Lempesis and the university for fraud and breach of trust, the station said.
Read more at the Doings Burr Ridge and the ABC7 websites.
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