Grand Jury Indicts Lyons Township Grad Donald Cuba in Connection with Rape

A grand jury in Dallas County, TX, has indicted 20-year-old Donald S. Cuba of La Grange Park on one count of sexual assault in connection with a Feb. 10 rape of a fellow student in a Southern Methodist University dorm, reports the Fort Worth Weekly.

According to the SMU Daily Campus, university police posted a crime alert on Feb. 14 after a student reported a sexual assault by a “student acquaintance” in SMU’s Smith Hall the morning of the previous day.

The Weekly also reports that Cuba was twice brought before an SMU internal judicial system, initially found guilty, then innocent upon appeal. A second appeal by the victim led to the indictment, the Weekly said. (SMU uses a highly confidential “conduct review process” to handle accusations between students.)

A two-year-old Lyons Township High School press release identifies Cuba, then an LT senior, as a semifinalist for a National Merit scholarship, as well as an aspiring pilot, a member of the National Honor Society and an active member of a church group called Quest.

Cuba was also a longtime member of the Lyons Township Hockey Club, where he was an alternate captain as a senior. An LTHC website identifies him as a recipient of an annual Blackhawk Alumni Scholarship and a member of the Illinois Suburban Hockey League’s 2008-2009 All-Conference Academic Team.

Cuba’s mother Jill told the Weekly that her son “is not guilty” from the family’s La Grange Park home; the defendant’s attorney told the paper he intends to plead not guilty.

After a Sept. 10 booking, Cuba is free on $15,000 bail, the Daily Campus reports.

The Weekly also notes that while over 100 SMU students have reported sexual assault over the past 25 years, only one case ever resulted in convictions, a case where the defendants were not themselves SMU students.