Former CPS band teacher charged with sexually assaulting 2 girls, including student

A former Chicago Public Schools band teacher is being accused of sexually assaulting two girls, including a student he taught.

Cook County prosecutors said Eugene Westmoreland sexually assaulted a student in 2003 while he was a band teacher at Austin Community High School, 231 N. Pine Ave. The girl, then 16, quit the high school band after the alleged incident.

Westmoreland, now 58, is also accused of sexually assaulting one of his relatives between 2009 and 2014 when the victim was between nine and 14 years old, prosecutors said.

Westmoreland was ordered held without bail during an Oct. 30 court hearing, according to Cook County sheriff’s office records.

Westmoreland was arrested a day before his court hearing at his home in the 500 block of West Oak Street after the two victims, now adults, identified him, Chicago police said.

He has been charged with three counts of sexual abuse and two counts of sexual assault.

Westmoreland was fired from CPS in 2011 for an unrelated reason and placed on the district’s do-not-hire list, CPS spokeswoman Emily Bolton said.

Westmoreland recently worked as the band and music director at Christ the King Jesuit College Prep, 5088 W. Jackson Blvd., according to a faculty listing in the school’s 2018–2019 handbook.

Christ the King Jesuit College Prep is a private school.

“We are and have been fully cooperating with the civil authorities. While [Christ the King] cannot comment on personnel matters, we wish to assure all in the community that the safety and security of our students, faculty and staff is our number one priority,” school spokesman Michael Smith said in an emailed statement.

In October, a report showed that CPS will spend about $7.8 million this school year on initiatives protecting students from sexual misconduct. According to the report, CPS had made “significant accomplishments” since 2018 by creating the Office of Student Protections and the Protecting Chicago’s Children task force.

A month earlier, federal officials at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights released a report of its own finding “widespread and systemic” mishandling by CPS of thousands of sex abuse complaints dating back to 2012.

The district entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education that includes three years of federal monitoring, under threat of the withholding of federal funding if CPS doesn’t make progress.

Crime blog CWB Chicago first reported on the accusations against Westmoreland Tuesday.