Third Teen Charged In New Year's Eve Attack Near Congress Theater

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Mar 22, 2012 7:40PM

A third teen faces charges for the attack on an 18-year-old woman near the Congress Theater on New Year's Eve. Charles Chuning, 16, will be charged as an adult, along with Terrance Ford, 15, and Anwar Barbour, 16. All three face charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault, robbery and kidnapping.

The Highland Park high school student was found naked, bleeding and unconscious in a lawn near the Congress Theater in Logan Square around 9 p.m. on Dec. 31. Prosecutors say Chuning helped carry the victim from the theater to the residential area.

Tribune writes:

Chuning and five others had joined Ford and Barbour at a Logan Square restaurant where they met the woman, who had been separated by her friends after she was denied entry at a concert at the theater because she didn’t have an ID, [assistant state’s attorney Sean] O’Callaghan said.

The victim was eventually helped outside and when a witness saw Ford and Barbour fondling her against a chain-link fence at Rockwell and Milwaukee, Chuning suggested they move her “down the street,” O’Callaghan said.

Then at 2158 N. Rockwell, authorities say Ford raped the woman "while Chuning and several others watched in a semi-circle." Authorities say the three took turns carrying the woman, and at one point Chuning noticed she was bleeding from a fall during her encounter with the male teens, so he dropped her in a bush.

After the attack, a security guard at the Congress said he saw the woman with six men, and eight people were questioned. No one was charged until last week, when police apprehended Ford and Barbour and said they were seeking a third person. Chuning was charged when he returned from his boarding school in North Carolina.

Shortly after the attack, the woman was in a coma and in critical condition, having been raped and suffered head and body trauma. She returned home to recover days after the incident.