When Yadira Escamilla was sent to stay in the basement inside a South Side foster facility she in some ways lost touch with the outside world.
She was separated from other teens who stayed on the upper floors, she said. Her room was tiny, with only space for a couch, bed and dresser. There were no windows. And crucially, no security cameras.
“It was scary because I didn’t really have any more access to anybody,” Escamilla told the Tribune. “I was just locked there downstairs.”
That room was where an overnight manager for the first time physically restrained and sexually assaulted the then-17-year-old, a lawsuit filed last week in Cook County Circuit Court said.
Escamilla alleges in the suit against Aunt Martha’s Health and Wellness, the nonprofit that operated the now-closed residential facility, and its security contractor, A-Alert Security Services, that they failed to protect her from repeated sexual abuse and grooming in early 2024 despite “obvious indicators of misconduct.”
“What happened at Aunt Martha’s, it was wrong,” Escamilla, now 20, said. “I want to see change. I hope this brings some type of change that puts an end to the continuation of the constant abuse.”
The manager, Trulon Henry, 41, was found guilty in March of multiple sexual assault charges, including criminal sexual assault against Escamilla, according to court records. Henry’s attorney, Sean Brown, said he can’t comment on the lawsuit while the criminal case is still active.
Brown said he filed a motion for a new trial alleging prosecutors failed to prove Henry guilty beyond a reasonable doubt due to a lack of physical evidence and witness credibility.
Aunt Martha’s hired the former University of Illinois football player to work with at-risk children even though he had previously been convicted of felony armed robbery. Henry spoke about his record during his football career for numerous news articles and even a segment on the Big Ten Network.
“Aunt Martha’s and A-Alert were paid to protect vulnerable children in state custody — children who had already been through unimaginable hardship,” said Ben Crump, an attorney for Escamilla. “Instead, they hired a convicted felon and looked the other way while he groomed and assaulted teenagers in their care.”
“We will not stop until Yadira receives the justice she deserves and until every institution that houses vulnerable children understands there are consequences for failing them,” he added in the statement.
Amanda Zink, an attorney representing Aunt Martha’s, said they don’t comment on pending litigation. Efforts to reach A-Alert representatives were unsuccessful.
Survival mode
Even before Escamilla arrived at Aunt Martha’s, she had a difficult upbringing. As a child, she said she suffered from physical, emotional and sexual abuse. She was around 15 when the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took custody of her, she said.
Escamilla said she struggled with her mental health, attempting suicide multiple times, and would sometimes rely on substances to cope. These issues, she said, were compounded by instability as she moved between various foster facilities.
None of her temporary homes were top-notch by any means, Escamilla said. But nothing could have prepared her for the “house of horrors” she found at Aunt Martha’s in early 2023.
“It makes me sad and in a sense angry to know that (DCFS) removed me from an unsafe environment just to put me in an even worse environment,” Escamilla said.
A person walks past the now-closed nonprofit facility, Aunt Martha’s Health and Wellness, at 5001 S. Michigan Ave., on June 1, 2026. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Heather Tarczan, a DCFS spokesperson, said the department doesn’t comment on active lawsuits. Escamilla’s attorneys said they are considering further legal action against the department.
Escamilla said she felt like she was in survival mode as soon as she arrived. According to the suit, staff would routinely withhold food from residents and, even when it was served, it was often spoiled. Escamilla recounted one particularly inedible meal of pasta that had a layer of mold on the top.
On her first day, Escamilla said another resident told her that Henry expressed interest in her and wanted to contact her at night. Alarmed, Escamilla said she reported the “inappropriate relationship” to another employee.
But instead of conducting a “meaningful” investigation, the lawsuit alleges that staff put Escamilla and Henry in a room together and required the teenager to disclose what she had heard in front of him. Escamilla was then told that the other resident was lying, the suit said.
“That was my sign that I had to be quiet,” she said. “It was very well known what not to say after that.”
Soon after, Escamilla was transferred to a newly-opened transitional living program in Blue Island. She even spoke publicly at an event in 2024 with Gov. JB Pritzker about the facility, saying she knows “I am safe,” according to an ABC7 report.
But that safety didn’t last long. She was told she couldn’t stay in the program any longer because of alleged substance use, which the lawsuit said she disputed. Escamilla returned once again to Aunt Martha’s within about a month of leaving.
“I was devastated,” Escamilla said.
It also didn’t take long before contact with Henry started — at first on a tablet that was supposed to have parental controls and then in person.
During an overnight shift, Henry whispered to Escamilla that he liked her and that he could bring her “what she wanted,” referring to marijuana vape pens, the lawsuit said. She said Henry began frequently sneaking the vape pens to her in bags of chips.
Reporting the abuse
Escamilla was eventually moved into the isolated basement room after a conflict with another resident. Henry sexually assaulted her for the first time during her first night in the room, the lawsuit said.
The two employees watching over her left her side that night. An Aunt Martha’s staff member took a smoke break, and Henry asked an A-Alert security guard to leave, the suit alleged. He then went inside Escamilla’s room with his pants lowered and climbed on top of her, the suit said.
Because Escamilla was a “high-needs resident” she was supposed to have supervision at all times. But this wasn’t the only time that the guards or facility staff would leave her alone, if Henry asked or otherwise, she said.
On another occasion, a staff member allegedly returned to the basement hallway while Henry was assaulting Escamilla, the lawsuit said. Escamilla was partially undressed which “made it obvious” that it was an “inappropriate situation,” but the employee didn’t report or investigate it, the suit said.
“It made me hurt, and it made me terrified,” Escamilla said of the employees allegedly not protecting her.
Henry’s abuse continued from January 2024 through April 2024, and happened primarily during his overnight shifts, the suit said.
Escamilla said she tried to run away at one point but that she was caught. She felt like there was no way out so she tried numbing her pain using the marijuana Henry gave her.
She said she would think back to the first time she tried to report Henry. That experience coupled with other moments in her childhood made her think that there was no hope that she’d be believed.
Escamilla said she finally snapped out of it, however, when another resident — who felt like “a little sister” to her — told her that Henry also also had “a thing” with her. She then reported the abuse to a therapist at the facility, who seemed to believe the allegations, the suit said.
However, even after Henry was suspended, the suit said he still contacted Escamilla electronically, pressuring her not to disclose information to investigators.
‘They didn’t care’
Henry’s conduct, the lawsuit said, was “apparent, repetitive and detectable” and should have been easily recognized by Aunt Martha’s and A-Alert employees.
For example, it said security camera footage showed Henry escorting Escamilla to isolated or prohibited areas of the facility. She also developed symptoms consistent with a gynecological infection that should have been investigated, the suit said.
“I feel like they just didn’t care,” Escamilla said. “They didn’t care and they allowed it to continue happening.”
“What happened at Aunt Martha’s, it was wrong,” says Yadira Escamilla. “I want to see change. I hope this brings some type of change that puts an end to the continuation of the constant abuse.” (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Indeed, the lawsuit noted that during the facility’s roughly five and a half years of operation, DCFS logged about 3,850 unusual incident reports, including incidents involving physical aggression and violence. It said Chicago police responded to the facility roughly 175 times for alleged battery up until it closed in June 2024, statistics also reported by Injustice Watch.
The Injustice Watch investigation found that Aunt Martha’s complained to state officials beginning in 2022 that A-Alert security guards made sexually inappropriate comments to children and that they weren’t undergoing proper background checks.
A security guard employed by A-Alert, Antonio Hopkins, also faces multiple counts of criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 18 related to alleged misconduct at the facility. Court records show that he pleaded not guilty to these charges and has an upcoming court date this month.
Like Henry, Hopkins had a criminal record before working at the facility, including a felony theft conviction in DuPage County.
“That environment already existed and that they didn’t clean house or implement policies to make sure it was communicated that they were mandatory reporters … and do a complete overhaul is shocking,” said Margaret Battersby Black, Escamilla’s attorney and a managing partner at Levin & Perconti.
A long road ahead
Escamilla called the process of speaking with police and in court an “emotional roller coaster,” but when Henry was found guilty she felt overwhelmingly thankful.
“I felt blessed to know that for once something was done,” she said. “The entire time when we were in court he kept smiling at me .. so when the guilty verdict came in and I seen the change in his face I was thankful that everything worked out.”
But she said it’ll take more than a guilty verdict for her to heal. It’ll require years of therapy and treatment to address her mental health and substance abuse issues, she said. She’s been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress disorder.
“Aunt Martha’s really just added additional trauma onto what I was already dealing with, and it became even harder to be able to heal from,” she said.
Attending church, she said, has been a huge help. It’s given her hope and helped shift her mindset.
“(The pastor) said something about God will never put you in a position with more than you can handle,” she said. “So in that sense I know nothing that I ever go through is going to be too much for me to handle.”
She also works at a daycare and attends beauty school. She said she’s staying at another residential facility until she ages out of the foster system — the same one she went to after leaving Aunt Martha’s.
But she in many ways still feels anxious about aging out of the system. She said she needs to learn more about financial literacy, for example.
“I want to get out of this situation, but it’s also scary because DCFS didn’t prepare us to be able to live life in the real world,” she said.
One day she hopes to become a nurse as well as advocate for other foster kids. This lawsuit, she believes, is the first step to helping kids facing similar challenges as her.
“The foster system is messed up. We get taken out of situations and put in worse situations,” she said. “That has to come to an end.”