The woman at the center of the Chicago Public Schools inspector general’s reopened investigation into Hilario Dominguez, a candidate for Chicago Board of Education president, sent a letter Monday denouncing the top watchdog’s handling of the sexual harassment case.
In a copy of the email obtained by the Tribune, the woman accused the Office of Inspector General of sitting on the probe — which she said she did not know existed — for five years before closing it ahead of the upcoming election without interviewing her.
“I experienced sexual grooming behavior by a former CPS employee and supervisor, Hilario Dominguez, in 2017 at The Resurrection Project,” the woman, now 26, wrote in the letter to CPS Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht’s office. “I am writing to share my anger, frustration, and disappointment, but most importantly, the deep sense of injustice I faced as a result of your poor conduct in relation to this investigation.”
It’s unclear what action could result from the woman’s statement. While the inspector general ultimately answers to the Chicago Board of Education, there is no formal structure for investigating the district’s top watchdog.
Dominguez, most recently deputy political director for the Chicago Teachers Union, has denied the allegations of misconduct.
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The Tribune reported late Friday that Wagenknecht’s office has reopened the investigation about the allegations against Dominguez from his time at The Resurrection Project. Wagenknecht declined to comment Monday, while Dominguez did not respond to inquiries.
The woman wrote that Wagenknecht’s office told her investigators tried to call her parents in 2022 and had sent a direct message to an Instagram account they believed belonged to her, but she alleged she had no knowledge of those attempts. Wagenknecht has been inspector general since January 2025, when he was appointed to the post by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The woman had said in an interview with the Tribune that Dominguez made her uncomfortable when she participated in a summer program at the Pilsen-based nonprofit when she was 17. She alleges he asked about what men she was into and picked her up to twirl around when they were alone.
“My breasts, my legs, everything was pressed against his body,” the woman, whom the Tribune is not naming because she was a minor at the time of the incident, said. “My feet were off the ground. I was completely not in control at that point.”
In an earlier response to the Tribune’s questions on the allegations, Dominguez’s attorney, former Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin, provided a screenshot of correspondence from Wagenknecht’s office verifying the probe was closed in June.
On Sunday, after the Tribune reported on the reopened investigation, CTU’s legal team issued an email to all its members accusing the Inspector General’s Office of violating its policy by speaking publicly on an open case.
The woman said she did not initiate the OIG probe, and Wagenknecht has not commented on who did. But the case’s timeline is at the heart of the woman’s protest over the watchdog’s approach to the investigation.
“The fact that a case involving me was opened in 2021, remained open for five years, and I was never properly informed is absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote in her Monday letter.
She alleged that she did not know the inspector general was investigating Dominguez’s conduct toward her until her parents received a letter from the office last month informing them it determined “no actionable finding of sexual misconduct.” She then reached out to the watchdog’s office and spoke with the Sexual Allegations Unit’s assistant deputy director Christina Guarisco on Sept. 18.
The woman wrote that Guarisco “told me that she was familiar with the case and that the OIG had been receiving calls about it because of the upcoming election.” It was not clear who made those calls, and Dominguez did not respond to questions Monday on whether he reached out to the office in the past.
The Monday letter and the OIG’s case number indicate the watchdog received the complaint in 2021. That was the year a local Pilsen community leader flagged Dominguez’s principal about The Resurrection Project allegations after he had begun working as a special education teacher at Peter Cooper Dual Language Academy.
For that, the resident received a cease-and-desist letter from Dominguez’s lawyer Michael B. Cohen, according to a copy of the correspondence obtained by the Tribune.
Cohen’s letter claimed Chinatown state Rep. Theresa Mah and the nonprofit would both “establish your defamation of his character is actionable.”
Mah told the Tribune on Monday “at the time I asked (Resurrection Project CEO Raul Raymundo) about the allegations, a complaint had been lodged but then withdrawn, so there was nothing to investigate.” She previously told the Tribune that Raymundo had said he “conducted an investigation and found the claims to be false.”
“Given what was reported, I don’t doubt there may have been feelings of discomfort; what was described sounds like horseplay, and that does not automatically equate to predatory behavior,” she wrote.
Raymundo has not responded to multiple requests for comment, and in response to Mah’s statements, Resurrection Project spokesperson Sylvia Ortiz-Cooper on Monday declined comment.
Dominguez, on the other hand, posted a video response on Saturday saying “I look forward to clearing my name for the fourth time.” Other than the reopened inspector general case, it is unclear what inquiries Dominguez is citing when he says “each investigation has found the same exact thing: unfounded and unsubstantiated.”
Johnson, himself a former CTU organizer, praised Dominguez in a public forum this August before offering this during a Saturday appearance with him, according to Politico Illinois: “I trust that the process will play out. … It’s important that we have someone who understands the needs of students and families and educators, and he clearly is someone who possesses that understanding.”
The woman, in her Monday letter to the inspector general, said she was calling for larger systemic changes in how CPS handles cases like hers.
“I know what happened to me, and I know that I can advocate for myself now. But I cannot stop thinking about the young women and students who may not know how to do that,” she wrote. “Young people deserve a process that makes every reasonable effort to find them, hear them, and treat their experiences with the seriousness they deserve.”