Court documents reveal that a man who served as a substitute teacher for over a year in the Archdiocese of Chicago has been accused of inappropriately touching children multiple times in multiple states and has even served jail time related to those charges.
The archdiocese said in a Jan. 25 email and confirmed in public statements that it had fired substitute teacher Brett Smith upon learning of his “history of child molestation allegations in Illinois and other states.”
Smith had worked as a substitute teacher in at least four archdiocesan schools on the South Side and south suburbs since 2024 as well as tutored at least one student in the student’s home, according to the archdiocese.
The archdiocese said it was aware of “no allegations of sexual misconduct” regarding Smith at the archdiocesan schools. It said, however, that a family “filed a complaint against Mr. Smith with their local police for conduct that occurred while he was tutoring in their home.”
Smith’s name “was Brett Zagorac before he legally changed it in 2019,” the archdiocese said.
On Jan. 29 police in Orlando Park, Illinois, announced that they had arrested Smith on charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse; Smith had been under investigation concerning abuse involving a juvenile, police said. CBS Chicago reported on Jan. 30, meanwhile, that Smith was facing additional charges in Evergreen Park.
‘A history of using fake names‘
Local news reports from 2021, 2020, 2011, 2010, and numerous other years detail accusations of inappropriate touching by a man named Brett Zagorac or Brett Smith in Indiana, Illinois, and Arizona.
In a 2020 court filing obtained by EWTN News, meanwhile, Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Heston Silbert said Smith was the subject of a “complaint for special action” and petitioned the Superior Court of Arizona to block Smith’s fingerprint clearance card.
In that 2020 filing, Silbert asked the Superior Court of Arizona to intervene after the Arizona Board of Fingerprinting granted Smith a “good cause exception” to obtain a fingerprint clearance card. This card is required to allow someone to work in positions that involve children or vulnerable adults.
Silbert appealed to the court to “protect Arizona children” from what he said was a “substantial risk of victimization” by Smith, who he said had been “arrested 10 times and served prison time for inappropriately touching children.”
Smith “has a history of using fake names,” Silbert alleged, claiming that he “continued this conduct” even as he was seeking the fingerprinting exception.
In the 2020 filing, Silbert detailed a history of Smith’s arrests and convictions, starting in 2002 when he was arrested by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana allegedly for rubbing a boy’s back while substitute teaching in a classroom. After his arrest, another student reported similar behavior; still another student also reported witnessing similar touching.
The case was ultimately dropped due in part to “the victim’s unwillingness to testify,” though Smith was arrested again in 2005, according to the filing, for “felony child molesting” after he allegedly touched a boy’s genitals during class.
Those charges were also dismissed, again after the alleged victim was unwilling to testify. The filing detailed further arrests in 2005, 2010, 2011, 2015, and 2016, most of which involved either child sex abuse allegations or order violations related to such cases.
In one case, he pleaded guilty to a reduced count of battery and received 20 days in jail and two years’ probation; in another, a jury found him guilty of misdemeanor battery and he was sentenced to 180 days in jail.
In multiple cases, the 2020 filing claims, Smith used fake names when attempting to gain access to children via tutoring or nanny services.
Silbert in the 2020 filing said that in May 2019 Smith moved to change his last name from Zagorac, filing the request in Maricopa County Superior Court.
The 2020 filing goes on to explain that after being denied a fingerprint card in 2018, Smith applied again for the card in June 2019 after the name change request and was denied again. Later that year he applied for the “good cause exception,” which the Arizona Board of Fingerprinting ultimately accepted.
In April 2021 a grand jury indicted Smith on multiple counts of forgery, fraud, and perjury related to his name change application and his efforts to access children through tutoring positions.
Smith subsequently pleaded guilty to one count of felony forgery, receiving a sentence of 2.5 years of probation.
Archdiocese said it performed background checks
In its Jan. 25 email, the archdiocese said Smith had passed both a state background check and a fingerprint check prior to his employment in schools there.
The archdiocese did not respond to multiple requests for comment from EWTN News regarding Smith’s employment. But the archdiocese told the Chicago Tribune that Smith “passed the Illinois State Police name and fingerprint tests,” according to the paper.
“Neither his current name nor previous names appears on any convicted sex offender list in the country,” the archdiocese told the Tribune. “We are still working to determine how these government systems on which we and other schools rely did not identify him.”
A spokeswoman for the Illinois State Police told EWTN News that it “receive[d] a fingerprint for a criminal history check from the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2024 and the Chicago Board of Education in 2025.”
“In both instances, ISP processed the request and provided a response the same day,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the police are “prohibited from sharing that response.”
“ISP will provide the criminal history information to the organization, but the organization will determine what is done with that information and make the hiring decision,” she said.
Under state record laws, the spokeswoman said, an organization such as the archdiocese “would receive a criminal history containing unsealed convictions and sealed felony convictions.”
