A substitute teacher recently fired by the Chicago Archdiocese was arrested in Orland Park and charged with felony sexual assault.

Orland Park police said in a news release that Brett Smith, 43, engaged in sexual contact with a juvenile. Police said they began investigating Smith after parents of the child Smith was tutoring under the alias BJ S. McAuliffe became concerned when the name for a requested bank payment appeared as Brett Smith.

The archdiocese listed several names the teacher has used in the past, including Brett Zagorac before legally changing his name. The Tribune previously outlined numerous charges and accusations against Zagorac.

“The parents conducted an online search of Brett Smith, also known as Brett Zagorac, and located publicly available news articles and videos from other states referencing prior allegations involving children,” Orland Park police said. “The parents then contacted the Orland Park Police Department, prompting a criminal investigation.”

Police said Smith changed his name from Brett Zagorac and used aliases including BJ S., BJ Smith and BJ S. McAuliffe when advertising private tutoring services on social media.

Smith was hired by the archdiocese in 2024, having passed background and fingerprint checks, and worked at at least four schools on the South Side of Chicago and in the south suburbs over the past 16 months. He started substitute teaching at Queen of Martyrs Catholic School in Evergreen Park earlier this month.

The archdiocese said it was not aware of any allegations of sexual misconduct while Smith worked at its Catholic schools. A parent of a student at Queen of Martyrs made the archdiocese aware of past allegations, the archdiocese said.

“Upon learning these allegations, we took immediate action to bar him from our schools and he has been terminated,” said the letter, signed by the superintendent of schools, Greg Richmond, and Leah Heffernan, director of the archdiocese’s office for the protection of children and youth

Zagorac was charged in 2002 with two counts of misdemeanor battery in Lake County, Indiana, for inappropriately touching two students while he was working at Peifer Elementary School in Schererville. He was convicted a year later and sentenced to 90 days in jail, fined $250 and placed on one year of probation, according to the Post-Tribune.

While working as a substitute teacher at Edison Elementary School in Hammond in 2005, Zagorac was charged with child molestation for allegedly touching an 8-year-old boy inappropriately two years earlier, according to the Post-Tribune. Police reported that Zagorac touched the student’s rear, put his hand under his shirt and rubbed his back and fondled him outside his clothing after calling him up to the teacher’s desk to talk about an assignment.

The first trial ended in a mistrial, and the charges were later dropped after the victim’s mother said the boy was ill and afraid to come to court to testify, the Post-Tribune reported.

Zagorac was fired from substitute teaching jobs in Naperville District 203, Hinsdale District 181 and Schaumburg District 54 in 2005, after the districts realized their background checks did not extend beyond Illinois’ borders, according to the Naperville Sun.

He was accused of inappropriately touching or taking an unusual interest in at least seven preteen students within a three-year period working within District 203, though Naperville police at the time said no complaints had been filed locally.

He was later charged with criminal sexual abuse and battery of 13 elementary school students in Naperville and Downers Grove. On the day he was supposed to go to trial in 2007, he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor battery charge involving a child and was sentenced to 20 days in the DuPage County Jail and fined $250, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.

He served just half of his sentence, the Naperville Sun reported, and Assistant DuPage County State’s Attorney Jeff Muntz said at the time he did not have to register as a sex offender.

Zagorac’s arrest record was expunged erroneously from the FBI National Crime Information Center computer in 2009, according to the Post-Tribune, after defense attorney Christopher Schmidgall filed a petition for the expungement. Lake Superior Court Judge pro tem Susan Severtson, acting on the recommendation of Magistrate Natalie Bokota, directed authorities to reconstruct his arrest record.

Zagorac was convicted of misdemeanor battery again in 2010 for inappropriately touching a 5-year-old student he was tutoring in Portage, Indiana, in 2009. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail but was released at the time because he had already served 184 days while awaiting trial on the original charges of felony child molestation, according to the Post-Tribune.

In 2015, he pleaded guilty to battery, aggravated sexual abuse and grooming in Wilmette, though the Cook County court records remain sealed. According to the Post-Tribune, he was working as a tutor and babysitter at the time, and was accused of sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy in 2014.

After the child’s parents learned about the man’s background, police said, the boy disclosed the incident to his parents. Police said the man used several aliases, one of which he provided to the family.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com