Sept. 18--A Far South Side man freed on bond after allegedly shooting upskirt video of a 16-year-old girl at a CTA train station is now charged with following a female Columbia College student off a CTA train and then groping her inside a campus building.
Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. reacted angrily when he heard that Steven Carmona, 41, had violated the terms of his $200,000 bail, which banned him from being on CTA property. Carmona was arrested Thursday after appearing in court on yet another upskirting charge, this one a misdemeanor.
"Your client doesn't get it," he told Carmona's attorney Friday before setting bail at $5 million on one count of criminal sexual abuse. "Your client, to me, he is a predator."
Prosecutors said that on Sept. 9, Carmona followed a 20-year-old female Columbia College student out of the Roosevelt Orange Line station.
He then followed the woman into the college's Theatre Center, getting on an elevator with her in the basement, said Assistant State's Attorney Todd Kleist. Once they were on the elevator, Carmona grabbed the woman's left arm and grabbed her breast over her clothing, Kleist said.
Carmona asked the woman her name and age -- which she gave -- and told her his name was Michael, according to an arrest report, which described the initial contact as brushing the woman's breast as he reached for the elevator buttons.
The woman left the elevator and walked into a restroom, but Carmona pushed the door open and grabbed the woman's breast again, he said. Carmona then grabbed the woman's arm, pulling her body before the woman freed herself and backed further into the bathroom, he said.
Carmona then apologized and asked for her phone number. The woman refused, Kleist said.
He then asked for her to jump up and down but the woman again refused, he said, and Carmona fled.
She identified Carmona in a photo array on Wednesday, Kleist said, and he was arrested Thursday as he left branch court at Belmont and Western avenues. Prosecutors had just dropped the misdemeanor upskirting charge, filed in April, in which Carmona allegedly filmed a 38-year-old woman, the prosecutor said.
The married father of a 16-year-old daughter has a pending case in which he allegedly used his phone to record video up the skirt of a 16-year-old girl as she walked up the stairs of a CTA station April 1.
He had begun recording the girl at the Belmont Avenue Red Line station and then followed her onto a southbound Red Line train. He took video of her on the train and then followed her off at the Harrison Street Red Line stop, taking video of her as she walked up the stairs, prosecutors have said.
A judge ordered him held on $150,000 bail and to stay away from the victim, other minors and CTA property. He posted bail, but after violating the terms of his curfew and electronic monitoring restrictions, another judge ordered him held without bail June 5, Kleist said.
More than a month later, Judge Thomas Gainer Jr. reset his bond to $200,000, an amount that Carmona was able to post, according to Kleist and court records.
Carmona has a previous conviction in 2008 for an incident in which he "grabbed the buttocks of the victim while on the street," he said. He was also arrested in 1998 for peeping into a victim's windows, but that case was dismissed, Kleist said.
sschmadeke@tribune.com
