SYCAMORE – The former Upward Bound tutor accused of criminal sex abuse of a child younger than 17 and enticing a child younger than 16 posted $5,000 Friday to be released from the DeKalb County Jail.
Flavio C. Leanos-Macias, 25, of DeKalb, has been charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, criminal sexual assault and traveling to meet a minor and unlawful grooming. The most serious charge, aggravated criminal sex abuse, typically is punishable by four to 15 years in prison, followed by two years of parole.
Court records show Leanos-Macias posted $5,000 about 2 p.m. Friday afternoon. He told Judge Philip Montgomery during a bond hearing Thursday that he planned to use student loans to post bail.
Leanos-Macias, a former tutor of DeKalb High School students through Kishwaukee College’s Upward Bound program, was arrested Wednesday on a warrant with $100,000 bond attached.
Reasoning that Leanos-Macias has no criminal history, Montgomery reduced bond to $50,000, and Leanos-Macias said he could post $5,000 bail with the loan funds. Montgomery ruled that Leanos-Macias will be fitted with an electronic home monitoring bracelet, and that he have no contact with minors.
According to a news release from DeKalb police, a victim younger than 17 said Leanos-Macias had picked up the minor, who does not live in DeKalb and whom Leanos-Macias had met on the Grindr app, at his residence May 12 and brought him to his apartment in the 800 block of Edgebrook Drive, where the minor said he was sexually assaulted and driven home by Leanos-Macias the next day.
Another minor, younger than 16, came forward Tuesday and told police he’d met Leanos-Macias on another app, Hornet, and that they’d had conversations over a 10-day span that included Leanos-Macias trying to convince the minor to engage in sexual activity.
According to the Northern Illinois University directory, Leanos-Macias is a graduate teaching assistant in the sociology department, and also is listed as a student. Montgomery ruled that the electronic home monitoring bracelet will allow Leanos-Macias to go to work and classes, should he be allowed to by NIU.
DeKalb police investigators have reason to believe that there may be more victims, according to a news release. If you have information about this investigation or information about other potential victims, call the DeKalb Police Department at 815-748-8400 or Crime Stoppers at 815-895-3272. You can also call the crisis line through Safe Passage, which serves sexual abuse victims in DeKalb County, at 815-756-5228.