MARKHAM | A Cook County judge set bond at $500,000 Friday for a man who prosecutors said tried to sexually attack a woman on the campus of South Suburban College.
Associate Judge Darron E. Bowden set the bond for Dante Newcomer, 23, of Chicago, who was arrested on the South Holland campus on Thursday.
Officials with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said during a bond hearing at the 6th District Cook County Circuit Court in Markham that a woman who was a student at South Suburban College was riding a Pace bus along State Street on her way to school when Newcomer allegedly sat next to her, spoke with her, then tried put his hand on her thigh.
Prosecutors said the woman got off the bus at the college and Newcomer followed her. On several occasions, he tried to speak with her. State’s attorney’s officials said Newcomer eventually managed to corner her in a stairwell, where the sexual abuse is alleged to have taken place.
Patrick Rush, a spokesman for South Suburban College, declined Friday to discuss the incident, saying only that it is an “ongoing investigation” for the college’s police department.
Newcomer, who will be held at the Cook County Jail in Chicago while his case is pending, faces charges of criminal sexual abuse and unlawful restraint. He is scheduled to appear in court again on April 12.
In setting the bond, Bowden included an order that bans Newcomer from having any contact with the woman or being on college property.
Attorneys with the Cook County public defender’s office who represented Newcomer on Friday said he received a GED in 2010, but does not work. A Supplemental Security Income payment for medical disability is his only source of income, they said.
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