Circuit Court Rejects Cha's Technicality Arguments in Girl X

A Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled Wednesday, June 10, that the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) will remain a defendant in the Girl X case and will have to defend charges that the condition of the Cabrini Green Housing complex facilitiated the brutal attack on the little girl last year.

Clifford Law Offices and Hooks Law Offices, both of Chicago, represent the nine-year-old girl who was assaulted at the Cabrini Green Housing Complex Jan. 9, 1997. The lawyers succsssfully derailed the CHA's motion to be dismissed from the case.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Paddy McNamara issued an 11-page opinion today that allows Girl X to pursue a case based upon whether the CHA's "negligent maintenance of Cabrini Green facilitated the plaintiff's injuries, and whether this criminal act was foreseeable to Defendant [the CHA]."

Robert Clifford of Clifford Law Offices and William Hooks of Hooks Law Offices filed a lawsuit on the child's behalf against the CHA and the City of Chicago last year charging them with failing to provide operating elevators as well as failing to secure vacant apartments or remove dangerous poisons from the premises.

"This housing project not only gives its residents the false impression that they are secure with the flimsy security force on the premises, but it, in fact, contributes to the criminality going on there," Clifford said. The lawsuit charges that the CHA's security force contracts with private security companies who employ known criminals and convicted felons.

Clifford Law Offices and Hooks Law Offices will continue their investigation into the criminal backgrounds of certain CHA employees as part of its lawsuit.

Patrick Sykes, 25, of Chicago, a repeated sex offender, is charged with the attack. He allegedly raped the girl then found chemicals in a nearby vacant apartment and forced them down her throat, leaving Girl X for dead.