A substitute teacher working at a Catholic school in Evergreen Park has been fired after his long history of child molestation allegations — including a 2007 conviction related to incidents at Naperville School District 203 — came to light.
In Naperville, the man, known as Brett Zagorac before legally changing his name, was accused of inappropriate student contact while employed as a district substitute teacher for three years. He was charged in DuPage County with the criminal sexual abuse and battery of 13 elementary school students in Naperville and Downers Grove.
Before the case went to trial, he pleaded guilty to one count of battery for which he was sentenced to 20 days in jail. The record of that case and those that occurred before it was erroneously expunged in 2009, officials said.
The Archdiocese of Chicago, once it learned of his longtime history, fired him from his substitute teacher job at Evergreen Park’s Queen of Martyrs Catholic School, according to a letter sent to Catholic school families Sunday.
The teacher worked at at least four schools on the South Side of Chicago and in the south suburbs over the past 16 months, the archdiocese said.
“Upon learning these allegations, we took immediate action to bar him from our schools and he has been terminated,” said the letter, signed by Superintendent of Schools Greg Richmond and Leah Heffernan, director of the achdiocese’s office for the protection of children and youth
The teacher has faced allegations of child molestation in Illinois and other states, the archdiocese said, and has gone by several names while seeking employment at schools and offering tutoring services to families. He was hired by the archdiocese in 2024, having passed background and fingerprint checks, the archdiocese said.
A spokesperson for the Illinois State Police said it completed a criminal history test based on a fingerprint, which would reveal criminal history including unsealed convictions and sealed felony convictions, but said that is not a full background check.
“ISP will provide the criminal history information to the requesting organization, but the organization will determine what is done with that information and make the hiring decision,” the spokesperson said.
An archdiocese spokesperson said St. Walter-St. Benedict School in Chicago, where the teacher was a substitute during the 2024-25 school year, initiated a nationwide background check on the teacher. It was completed by the Illinois State Police “and third-party companies the archdiocese retains for these purposes,” the archdiocese said.
The teacher passed the Illinois State Police name and fingerprint tests, the archdiocese said.
“Neither his current name nor previous names appears on any convicted sex offender list in the country,” the archdiocese said. “We are still working to determine how these government systems on which we and other schools rely did not identify him.”
The archdiocese said it is not aware of any allegations of sexual misconduct while the teacher worked at its Catholic schools. There are no pending criminal charges against him.
He worked as a long-term substitute teacher at St. Walter-St. Benedict School in Chicago during the 2024-25 school year, as a third party vendor at Pope John Paul II Catholic School in Chicago at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year and as a substitute teacher at Queen of Martyrs Catholic School in January 2026.
The archidiocese’s letter listed several names it said the teacher has used in the past, including Brett Zagorac before his legal name change. The Chicago Tribune previously outlined numerous charges and accusations against Zagorac.
Zagorac was charged in 2002 with two counts of misdemeanor battery in Lake County, Indiana, for inappropriately touching two students while he was working at Peifer Elementary School in Schererville. He was convicted a year later and sentenced to 90 days in jail, fined $250 and placed on one year of probation, according to the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana archives.
While working as a substitute teacher at Edison Elementary School in Hammond in 2005, Zagorac was charged with child molestation for allegedly touching an 8-year-old boy inappropriately two years earlier, according to Post-Tribune archives. Police reported that Zagorac touched the student’s rear, put his hand under his shirt, rubbed his back and fondled him outside his clothing after calling him up to the teacher’s desk to talk about an assignment.
The first trial ended in a mistrial, and the charges were later dropped after the victim’s mother said the boy was ill and afraid to come to court to testify.
Zagorac was fired from substitute teaching jobs in Naperville District 203, Hinsdale District 181 and Schaumburg District 54 in 2005 after the districts realized their background checks did not extend beyond Illinois’ borders, according to a Naperville Sun report.
He was accused of inappropriately touching or taking an unusual interest in at least seven preteen students while working for District 203, though Naperville police at the time said no complaints had been filed locally.
He was later charged with criminal sexual abuse and battery of 13 elementary school students in Naperville and Downers Grove. On the day he was to go to trial in 2007, he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor battery charge involving a child and was sentenced to 20 days in the DuPage County jail and fined $250, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.
He served just half of his sentence, the Naperville Sun reported, and Assistant DuPage County State’s Attorney Jeff Muntz said at the time he did not have to register as a sex offender.
In 2009, Zagorac’s arrest record was expunged erroneously from the FBI National Crime Information Center computer, according to the Post-Tribune, after defense attorney Christopher Schmidgall filed a petition for the expungement. Lake Superior Court Judge pro tem Susan Severtson, acting on the recommendation of Magistrate Natalie Bokota, directed authorities to reconstruct his arrest record.
Zagorac was convicted of misdemeanor battery again in 2010 for inappropriately touching a 5-year-old student he was tutoring in Portage, Indiana, in 2009. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail but was released at the time because he had already served 184 days while awaiting trial on the original charges of felony child molestation, according to the Post-Tribune.
In 2015, he pleaded guilty to battery, aggravated sexual abuse and grooming in Wilmette, though the Cook County court records remain sealed. According to the Post-Tribune, he was working as a tutor and babysitter at the time, and was accused of sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy in 2014.
After the child’s parents learned about the man’s background, police said, the boy disclosed the incident to his parents. Police said the man used several aliases, one of which he provided to the family.
Queen of Martyrs school advisory board said in a letter Saturday that its parents came together “to express concerns, ask hard questions and advocate for change.” They met with representatives from the archdiocese and continue to discuss improving hiring practices, procedures and safety protocols at Queen of Martyrs, the letter stated.
The school affirmed that after concerns were brought forward, the teacher was fired and his access to the school was suspended. An open house for current and prospective families was held Sunday following its regular Mass.
The archdiocese thanked parents of students at Queen of Martyrs, who it said “have been instrumental in shedding light on this situation.” The archdiocese is cooperating with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and Evergreen Park and Orland Park’s police departments, it said.
“The presence of this individual in some of our schools and with some of our students is very alarming,” the archdiocese said. “We regret that this individual has been in several of our schools and are deeply committed to providing a safe environment for all our students.”
The archdiocese encouraged parents of children who interacted with the teacher in any ways that made them uncomfortable to contact the DCFS Hotline at 1-800-252-2873, their local police department and/or the archdiocese office for the protection of children and youth at 312-534-5254.
Christin Lazerus of the Post-Tribune contributed to this report.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
