According to the Chicago Tribune News, Sarah Naughton, 31, an “apparently intoxicated” Cook County, IL prosecutor from Chicago became disruptive in an adult store on the North Side, and bit a worker of the business next door in the leg when told to leave, authorities reported.
Naughton was with a male companion when she had a scuffle with the man she bit. The event happened outside a lingerie shop. The store advertised itself as a “Purveyors of Adult Accoutrements, Toys and Lingerie.” She was asked to leave the shop. She and her male companion appeared intoxicated and caused a disturbance, police said. She was on the sidewalk outside the store. Witnesses said she was rapping on store windows and making obscene gestures to passers-by.
Her bite broke the man’s skin. The man who got bit managed a cigar shop business next to the lingerie shop. He had to go to the hospital, and was treated and released. Naughton sought medical attention for unspecified injuries, police reported.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, when she was asked to leave, she pulled out her badge, and said: “You can’t do this to me. Do you know who I am?” After she got arrested, a video captured her frantically crying and complaining to police officers about how tight her handcuffs were. The event happened around 7:40 pm on September 22, 2012.
Naughton was charged with misdemeanor battery and criminal trespassing, and released on recognizance bonds. A battery is a harmful or offensive contact with plaintiff’s person caused by an intentional act. A person commits criminal trespass when the person knowingly, without the owner’s consent to do so, enters or remains on property, or a portion thereof.
Naughton has been an employee of the state’s attorney’s office for eight years, tasked with putting criminals behind bars. In early September 2012, she won the conviction of Dawn Hamill, 43, the owner of a southwest suburban animal-rescue facility, on animal-abuse charges. Naughton delivered the closing arguments in the Hamill case. More than 18 months after the Cook County Sheriff’s Department raided an animal rescue facility in the southwest suburbs, a jury found Hamill guilty of eight animal neglect charges.
Naughton has been an assistant state’s attorney since 2008. Naughton was placed on administrative leave and not allowed to litigate cases, according to state’s attorney spokesman Andy Conklin. The state’s attorney’s office will conduct an internal investigation.