What happened at Queen of Martyrs was not okay. If your child was there, this is for you.

Queen of Martyrs, 103rd Street, the Evergreen Park side of the Mount Greenwood line; pre-K through eighth, 178 kids in its last year, and it closed this June. Your kid was there. 2024, 2025, maybe just those first weeks of 2026 before it all came out. Or a tutor who went by BJ was coming to the house. If so, then yes: this is about your family. A substitute named Brett Smith worked in that building in January 2026 with a record going back to 2002 in three states, and the Archdiocese has said its own check didn't catch it. What a lawyer asks next is who should have known, and when.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

Looking for the page about the man, not the place? Brett Smith.

This applies to you no matter what

Your child never said a word, and you only pieced it together from the letter, the news, or a look on their face. The Orland Park family only found out because the name on a Zelle payment didn't match the name he was using, and they went looking.
A substitute, not a full-time teacher, in the building a few weeks at most. Doesn't matter. The Archdiocese hired him and the Archdiocese ran the check. The second grader in the January 28 lawsuit knew him four days, by the complaint's dates.
Nothing was ever charged over what happened to your child. The criminal case that ended in July was about one boy in Orland Park. The civil complaint against the Archdiocese is a separate thing, and it doesn't wait on the State's Attorney.
The school's gone. Queen of Martyrs locked up for good in June 2026, sure, but the employer that hired him and ran the place, the Archdiocese of Chicago, hasn't gone anywhere; it's still at 835 North Rush Street.
Your child is still small and you'd rather not put them through anything. Understood. Asking costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and a lawyer will tell you plainly what a case would and would not ask of a child before you decide a thing.
You're a grandparent, an aunt, a teacher who saw something and wasn't listened to. Reach out anyway.

The Queen of Martyrs record: what was filed, what he pleaded to, and when

We didn't write what's below. Evergreen Park and Orland Park police did, and the Cook County State's Attorney, a family's lawyers, the Archdiocese in its own statements, and the reporters who followed it, and every line links to where it came from. We add nothing. One thing to get exactly right, because the headlines didn't always: the conviction here is for aggravated battery of a child. The sexual-abuse count was dismissed as part of the plea. Everything about Queen of Martyrs itself is an allegation, and Smith's lawyer has denied all of it.

2024 to January 2026

The Archdiocese of Chicago hired Brett Smith as a substitute in 2024 and says he passed its state background and fingerprint checks. Where it says he worked: St. Walter-St. Benedict in Morgan Park and Blue Island, as a long-term sub in 2024-25; Pope John Paul II in Brighton Park, through a vendor, when 2025-26 started; private tutoring on the side; then Queen of Martyrs in January 2026. What that check didn't turn up was the man he'd been before 2019, when he changed his name in Arizona. As Brett Zagorac he'd been convicted of battery in Lake County, Indiana, in 2003, and again in Porter County in 2010. In between, in 2007, he'd pleaded to misdemeanor battery in DuPage County over a child. And in 2017, after a Wilmette family reported him, a misdemeanor plea in Cook County. Southwest Regional Publishing, July 29, 2026.

January 21 to 27, 2026

Evergreen Park police were called to Queen of Martyrs on January 21 to meet parents who had found the old news stories themselves. One family reported a possible incident with their own child at the school. Smith was fired. The Archdiocese reported him to DCFS and the police (DCFS confirmed it opened an investigation), called itself "deeply concerned," said it was looking into how its pre-employment check missed him, and credited the parents, who'd been "instrumental in shedding light on this situation." Block Club Chicago.

January 28, 2026

A Queen of Martyrs family filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of Cook County against Smith, the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Rev. Ritchie Ortiz-Juárez and the school's former principal, Stephen Davidson. It alleges Smith began grooming their second grader as soon as he was hired, inappropriately touched him and forced body contact between January 12 and 15, and that church officials were aware of his past allegations and failed to alert parents that there was "credible evidence" he had harmed other students. Smith's lawyer, for his part, called the suit "a shakedown of the archdiocese." From the Archdiocese, nothing; it does not comment on litigation. Sun-Times, February 5, 2026.

January 29 and 30, 2026

Orland Park police arrested Smith over a 9-year-old boy he had tutored at home, between December 7, 2025 and January 7, 2026, under the name "BJ S. McAuliffe." Prosecutors in Cook County charged aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a felony, plus wire fraud, over the tutoring. Then a second, smaller charge out of Evergreen Park, misdemeanor battery, for unwanted contact with a student at Queen of Martyrs. Not guilty, he said, to all of it. At the Bridgeview courthouse on January 30, Judge William Fahey ordered him held: "Frankly, Mr. Smith, enough is enough." ABC7 Chicago.

June 15, 2026

Queen of Martyrs would not reopen for 2026-27. The Archdiocese put it down to enrollment, 325 in 2016, down to 178 last year, and 140 projected, but Superintendent Greg Richmond also wrote that "events earlier this year, including concerns related to a personnel matter, shook the trust of some families and contributed to their decision to leave." A personnel matter. He didn't name it. Sun-Times.

July 16, 2026

In the Orland Park case, Smith pleaded guilty before Judge Steven Rosenblum to aggravated battery of a child. The sentence: two years' probation, registration as a violent offender against youth, and while he's on probation, no teaching, coaching or tutoring. Dismissed as part of the deal were the aggravated criminal sexual abuse count and the wire fraud count; the judge said he took the plea partly so the 9-year-old wouldn't have to testify. That is the conviction, exactly. Not a sex-offense conviction, and not about what happened at the school. Southwest Regional Publishing.

We checked this on September 11, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from July 16, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Queen of Martyrs lawsuit

First, and mainly, the Archdiocese of Chicago. Queen of Martyrs was its school, Smith was its hire, and the check that cleared him was its check. A school takes on a plain duty when it puts an adult in a classroom of seven-year-olds: find out who he is. The January 28 complaint says the Archdiocese had what it needed to know and didn't tell parents. The Archdiocese's own statement says the check came back clean. Those two things are the whole case, and a court sorts them out, not a web page.

Then the people named alongside it: the parish priest, the Rev. Ritchie Ortiz-Juárez, and the principal at the time, Stephen Davidson, who left the school in January. They are defendants in the family's suit; nothing has been decided about either of them. Smith himself is a defendant too, but he has no money to speak of and is on probation, which is why the institution, not the man, is who a lawyer looks at.

One more thing worth knowing. The Archdiocese is not in bankruptcy, there is no claims deadline, and it has settled abuse claims for years out of its own funds. And because Queen of Martyrs was a private school, none of the special rules that shield a public school district come into it.

Your deadline: the Illinois statute of limitations for what happened at Queen of Martyrs

If your child was at Queen of Martyrs in 2024, 2025 or 2026, there's no deadline on a childhood sexual abuse claim. None. Illinois did away with the limitation period back on January 1, 2014; the statute, 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2(f), says an action "may be commenced at any time." The one catch in that law, that it doesn't revive claims that had already expired before 2014, can't touch a kid born after 2010.

If a lawyer ends up framing part of it some other way, say as a plain battery rather than sexual abuse, the clock still doesn't start until your child turns 18, and then runs two years (735 ILCS 5/13-211). So a second grader in January 2026 has until well into the 2030s on even the narrowest reading. We ask the birth-year question because every page asks it; here it changes nothing.

So no rush from the law. What does change with time is memory, and who still works where; the school closed in June, and people move on, teachers, office staff, families. Reason enough for a twenty-minute conversation. Not a countdown.

Your situation still qualifies even if

Maybe you're not even sure anything happened. You just know he was in your child's classroom and the school never said so until parents forced it. Ask anyway.
It was one of the other schools, St. Walter-St. Benedict or Pope John Paul II, or a tutor in your own kitchen. Same employer, same check.
Your child told a teacher, or you told the office, and nothing came of it. Say so on the call; that matters more than you'd think.
You already talked to Evergreen Park police, or DCFS, in January. That was the right thing and it doesn't use up anything.
You've moved your kids to another school, or out of state. Every Queen of Martyrs family had to find somewhere else by August anyway.

Facilities covered

Four places, really, starting with Queen of Martyrs School itself at 3550 West 103rd Street in Evergreen Park, pre-K through eighth grade until it closed in June 2026. Then, per the Archdiocese, St. Walter-St. Benedict School (Morgan Park and Blue Island), where he was a long-term substitute in 2024-25, and Pope John Paul II School in Brighton Park, where a vendor placed him as 2025-26 began. And the south suburban homes where he tutored privately, as BJ S., as BJ Smith, and as BJ S. McAuliffe. A different Archdiocese school, or a different year? The questions still work. Answer them and say where on the call.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue the Archdiocese of Chicago over Queen of Martyrs?

One family already has, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, filed January 28, 2026, and the Archdiocese is the first defendant. Whether your family can depends on what happened to your child and what the school was told, which is what the questions above are for. The school being closed changes nothing about that.

Will my child have to testify?

Not to ask, and not to have a lawyer look. A civil case is not a criminal trial, and how much a child is ever asked to do is something the lawyer explains before anything is filed. Nothing is filed unless you say so.

Was Brett Smith convicted?

He was, though not of what the first headlines said. The July 16, 2026 plea in Cook County was to aggravated battery of a child in the Orland Park case (the 9-year-old he'd tutored at home, nobody from Queen of Martyrs), with the aggravated criminal sexual abuse and wire fraud counts dropped as part of it; so, in that case, no sex-offense conviction. The separate battery charge from the school is, as far as anything public says, still an allegation. We don't round any of that up.

What about the Illinois statute of limitations?

Not one that touches this. Anything after 2014 has no deadline in Illinois, and Queen of Martyrs is 2024 to 2026; the legislature took it off on January 1, 2014 (735 ILCS 5/13-202.2). The only exception is for claims that had already run out before that date, which doesn't reach anyone born this century. If a lawyer frames a claim as ordinary battery instead, your child still has until two years past their eighteenth birthday.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Illinois attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.