Spiro Lempesis

The school district that employed a coach accused of sexually molesting a student there in the 1990s has reportedly reached a settlement agreement with his accuser.

Spiro Lempesis worked at Burr Ridge Middle School District 180 between 1991 and 1996, first as a contract employee and then as a district employee.

Starting in 1995, according to the federal lawsuit filed by former student Adam Kelley, Lempesis repeatedly drugged and raped him, both by himself and with other men.

In July 2013, Kelley sued both Lempesis and District 180, saying Lempesis could not have done it without a lack of oversight by the school.

“(A)llowing 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,” attorney Karen Enright wrote.

Enright did not immediately return a call Friday seeking comment, and school officials were not available for comment over the Thanksgiving weekend.

According to the federal court website PACER, on Nov. 24 Enright notified the court that she “has reached an agreement with the school district and that (Kelley) will soon be filing a motion to dismiss the entire case with prejudice.”

“All matters relating to the referral of this action having been concluded, the referral is closed and the case is returned to the case’s assigned District Judge,” wrote Magistrate Judge Young B. Kim.

A status hearing is scheduled for Dec. 17 before Judge Robert W. Gettleman.

Kelley’s federal lawsuit, which asks for “more than $75,000,” is one of three legal actions targeting Lempesis. He has insistently denied ever molesting minors and contends that both Kelley and another former student are suing to force the two schools Lempesis worked for to settle out of court.

Lempesis is also embroiled in a second lawsuit in state court brought by Anthony Collaro, a former college baseball player at Concordia University in River Forest, who claims Lempesis coerced him into videotaped sexual acts while he was the Concordia baseball head coach.

In September Lempesis was arrested by River Forest police and charged with criminal sexual assault of a minor after a criminal investigation into allegations made in Collaro’s civil lawsuit. Police allege that Lempesis molested Collaro in a university shower room when Collaro was a high school junior.

Lempesis was subsequently indicted by a grand jury in that case and faces between four and 15 years in prison if convicted. He remains free on $200,000 bond.

According to the federal lawsuit, Kelley, who is now living in Louisiana, began experiencing an array of problems several years ago, including depression, anger and substance abuse. He sought psychotherapy starting in June 2011, triggering a series of repressed memories.

“It was then that his repressed memories about the sexual abuse performed by (Lempesis) started to come back,” he alleges in his lawsuit.

Plaintiff Adam Kelley in 2013. (Photo by Bill Dwyer)

Lempesis’ alleged misconduct first came to light after a mother complained about coming home to find Lempesis wrestling with her 13-year-old son in her home’s basement rec room in 1996.  Burr Ridge Middle school administrators reportedly confronted Lempesis and placed a discipline letter in his personnel file.

In a February deposition for his federal case, Lempesis acknowledged he may have been “borderline inappropriate” in giving a student a “wedgie,” that is, yanking his underwear up out of his pants.

“And you would give wedgies to students,” he was asked, to which he answered, “I have given wedgies to students, yes.”

Asked how many children he’d given wedgies, Lempesis answered, “I mean, offhand, I don’t remember all of them …”

Lempesis was terminated in June 1996. A March 16, 1996 memo obtained through a FOIA states Lempesis was released due to staff reductions.

But minutes from several D180 school board meetings in early 1996 reveal Lempesis was the only tenured teacher dismissed among 10 teachers let go after an education fund referendum was voted down.

“From all the discussion and comments, we believe there were two hot items, the band and Spiro (BD teacher/booster club supporter),” the minutes of a Feb. 13, 1996 Parent Teacher Club meeting read. “Right now those two items are driving as much conversation and excitement as we have seen for the past two referendums.”

In 2013, Enright said she had 23 individuals set to be called as witnesses against Lempesis at trial. Among those listed are two FBI agents who investigated allegations that Lempesis was part of a pedophile ring operating in the Burr Ridge Area, and two women who were teachers at the school while Lempesis and Kelley where there.

Both teachers, Enright said, were expected to testify “regarding the general attitude of the teachers at Burr Ridge Middle School regarding Spiro Lempesis,” and “about Spiro Lempesis’ inappropriate contact with students.”

After leaving Burr Ridge, Lempesis worked in the Norridge Park District from May 1998 through February 2003. In 2001 he was hired as the head baseball coach for Concordia University in River Forest. He worked there for nine seasons, becoming the winningest coach in the school’s history.

He was suddenly fired by Concordia in October 2010 after the school learned of allegations of inappropriate conduct with a baseball player.

In 2014, Concordia launched an investigation into Lempesis’ behavior while head coach. The university said it acted after learning of a June 2012 incident in Elmhurst in which police found Lempesis in the back seat of his car with a 16-year-old boy at 2 a.m.

Lempesis was not charged in that incident after the boy told police he had lied to Lempesis about his age.