Sex offender at center of Lake Park scandal now charged with being in Elmhurst school
A sex offender at the center of the 2019 Lake Park High School football controversy is now facing a charge that he was in an Elmhurst elementary school illegally in February.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Frank J. Battaglia, 73, of the 500 block of West Babcock Avenue in Elmhurst. Bail has been set at $10,000, but he can be freed if he posts $1,000 bond.
According to DuPage County court records, at 1:29 p.m. Feb. 7 Battaglia was in Emerson Elementary school, 400 West Ave.
He is charged with felony child sex offender in a school zone.
Elmhurst police could not be reached for comment late Thursday afternoon.
Battaglia pleaded guilty in 1992 to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a teenage girl. He was accused of touching her breasts in August 1991 in Bensenville and was sentenced to probation.
In the fall of 2019, Lake Park High School District 108 removed its head football coach because he told an assistant to take Battaglia's name off a list to be submitted to the human resources department for a criminal-background check. The district requires such checks for all volunteers. The school's athletic director and principal were also disciplined.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune last fall, Battaglia said he was recruited to volunteer as a coach, and that nobody asked him to fill out an application.
The 1992 victim, Debbie Sciortino of Addison, posted on Facebook last fall when she read media reports about the Lake Park situation. “Thirty years later he's still around children! Unacceptable on every level, when will he be stopped?” she wrote. She told the Chicago Tribune it happened when she was a 14-year-old freshman at Driscoll Catholic High School, where Battaglia was a coach.