Washington Elem. Assistant Principal Arrested for Child Sexual Abuse

It’s a been a grim week for children.

Earlier this week, I started working on a story involving late Northwestern Professor Roger Schank. He’s in the Epstein files 1,606 times. The Daily Northwestern is doing excellent coverage on this story. Professor Schank was quite an Epstein fanboy;

Schank repeatedly demonstrated public support for Epstein. In a 2009 email, Schank said that Epstein had “suffered injustice.”

…

The day before Epstein’s release, Schank wrote, “happy last day.” Upon his release, Epstein emailed Schank that he was “free and home.” Schank replied, “hallellujah.”

He was likely complicit in Epstein’s activities,

‘I have a girl for you’: Epstein wrote to Schank

In emails, Schank appeared to help protect Epstein’s interests regarding his sexual activity, and Epstein later offered Schank access to “a girl.”

In an email in June 2009, Schank appeared to tip off Epstein that two 15-year-olds were considering action that would give them legal grounds to sue the sex offender. Epstein then tells Schank to “(find) out who they were.”

According to his LinkedIn, Mr. Schank was at Northwestern for 11 years from 1989-2000, but was emailing Epstein about Northwestern computer science faculty into the 2010s. He died in 2023.

This story has a personal angle for me - I didn’t know Mr. Schank, but I was a computer science student at Northwestern from 2009-2011 (I dropped out in 2011). In what is a sadly common experience, my PhD advisor was sleeping with a student. I don’t know all the HR machinations, but my view was that the department protected offenders until they could find them a job elsewhere.

At the time, there was a view among Northwestern PhD students that if faculty brought in enough funding, the University let faculty do whatever they wanted. I have no idea to what degree that is true or not, but I want to know more about this story and Mr. Schank, who seems to have been a prolific fundraiser. If you have information on this and can talk on or off the record, please email me: tom@foiagras.com.

Washington Elem. Assistant Principal Arrested

The Evanston Roundtable broke the story that the long-time Assistant Principal of Washington Elementary, Carlos Mendez and his girlfriend (also a District 65 staffer) were arrested on February 5th and charged with crimes against minors;

Two employees of Evanston/Skokie School District 65 — Carlos Mendez, assistant principal at Washington Elementary, and his girlfriend, Maribel Flores-Hernandez, a paraprofessional at the Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center (JEH) — were arrested by Chicago police Feb. 5 and charged with sex crimes against children.

I reached out to District 65 for comment yesterday for this story;

Carlos Mendez has been on a leave of absence from his position with the District since October 28, 2025. It is the District’s understanding that the allegations in question are unrelated to his professional responsibilities and do not involve any District 65 students.

The safety and wellbeing of our community remains our highest priority. While these allegations are deeply concerning, this is a personnel matter and we are unable to share additional details at this time

The Roundtable put together the pieces on the timing of the October leave;

The charging documents also indicate that one victim alerted a family member to alleged abuse by Mendez and Flores Hernandez months later on Oct. 24 and that person notified the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) the next morning. DCFS workers went to investigate, and on Oct. 29, the Evanston Police Department was notified when it was learned that Mendez was an assistant principal.

There are more grim details in the Evanston Roundtable story.

In 2023, there was an investigation into Mr. Mendez during which he was put on leave. This became the topic of public comment at a March, 20 2023 Board Committee Meeting (minutes). In this meeting, a tearful Mr. Mendez made a public comment suggesting his accuser was racially motivated. He then read a statement of support from the School Principal, also suggesting Mr. Mendez was the victim.

I wanted to share my unconditional support for Carlos Mendez, my assistant principal, who has been put through an anonymous and sickening investigation prompted by a parent who's on a quest to have a black student who's having some social emotional needs expelled from District 65.

His statements were followed by other community members supporting Mr. Mendez. He was re-instated to his position shortly thereafter.

I want to know more about the events of 2023, I believe it is worthy of an investigative deep dive. If you have information or want to talk off-the-record, please drop me an email: tom@foiagras.com