Ex-youth Leader Pleads Not Guilty to Sexual Assault Charges Involving Teen Girl

By Gregory Tejeda
nwi
May 18, 2012

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/chicago/ex-youth-leader-pleads-not-guilty-to-sexual-assault-charges/article_1c5028cd-a2ef-56f7-bbc3-97169608ce3c.html

A man who volunteered to run youth programs with ties to a United Methodist Church in the East Side neighborhood pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminal charges alleging he had sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl.

Salvador Alvarez, 42, appeared before Associate Judge Arthur F. Hill Jr., at the Criminal Courts building, where he entered his plea to three counts of criminal sexual assault and 11 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, said Alvarez is scheduled to appear in court again on June 14. He remains free on a $250,000 bail.

Alvarez was arrested last month after officials with the East Side United Methodist Church, 11000 S. Ewing Ave., heard stories indicating he had been involved with a teenage girl. The Rev. Zaki L. Zaki, church pastor, has said church officials contacted police after talking to the girl and finding her accounts to be believable.

Alvarez was in charge of the Generation to Generation program that operates out of the offices of The Zone, a youth center the Methodist church maintains at 11731 S. Avenue O.

Zaki has said Alvarez was never a paid staffer with the church and worked for the youth program as a volunteer since the Generation to Generation program was created in 2010. Zaki also said the church cut all its ties to Alvarez when he was arrested April 5.

Among Alvarez’s duties were to teach computer classes to interested people at the church. It was not clear whether the teenage girl was one of his students.

Alvarez’s day job is as a website designer with Oak Brook-based Quam Interactive. Among the websites created by that company are the ones used by the Generation to Generation program.