Sexual Assault In Glenview Hotel Followed Blackmail Over Affair, Prosecutors Say

GLENVIEW, IL — A Chicago physical therapist is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Glenview hotel after blackmailing her for months over an extramarital affair.

His attorney said the relationship was entirely consensual and suggested the woman was trying to frame him for the sake of her marriage.

Ethan Livingston, 28, of Chicago, turned himself in Wednesday at the Glenview Police Department after being charged with criminal sexual assault, authorities said. He was released from custody Thursday after posting the $5,000 cash portion of his bond.

Prosecutors said Livingston met the woman on an online dating app nearly a year ago and began a sexual relationship, but neither Livingston or the woman's husband were aware of her relationship with the other. Late last year, after she ended the relationship, Livingston learned the woman was married, according to Assistant State's Attorney Paige Reinauer.

On Christmas Day, Livingston confronted the woman and made several attempts to call her husband from various numbers, but he assumed they were spam and disregarded the calls, the prosecutor said.

"[Livingston] then proceeded to blackmail and make demands of the [woman] in exchange for his silence," Reinauer said Thursday at his initial court appearance in Skokie.

According to the prosecutor, Livingston demanded the woman send him $10,000 and explicit images and videos. He also sent her a non-consensual recording of one of their past encounters. After the woman sent him $500, he responded that she owed him another 19 payments.

"[She] felt increasingly threatened and feared that [he] would disclose the affair to her husband," Reinauer said. "During this time, [she] felt compelled to continue in her sexual relationship with [him] to prevent [him] from exposing their affair."

For the next several weeks, the woman continued to meet with Livingston, have sex, send nude photos and pay for his meals, the prosecutor said.

On Jan. 17, the pair met at the Courtyard Marriott, 1801 Milwaukee Ave. in Glenview. According to Livingston's attorney, the woman had invited him there because she was in the area for a work-related convention.

Reinauer said they began to argue about their relationship and how Livingston was "tormenting" the woman by threatening to tell her husband about their affair.

According to the prosecution, Livingston grabbed the woman by the throat until she became lightheaded before sexually assaulting her. The woman began recording with her cell phone, which captured an audio recording of the incident.

Reinauer said the cell phone recording shows that Livingston refused the woman's requests to stop and continued assaulting her. She later "unintentionally" stopped the recording and was about to leave the hotel, but Livingston allegedly repeated his threat to her husband about the relationship and she decided to stay overnight.

The next day, the woman told her husband about the assault and went to a local hospital, where she received multiple calls from Livingston, who then texted her husband and told him about the affair, according to the prosecutor.

Reinauer said Glenview police opened an investigation Jan. 18 and arrested Livingston on Jan. 26 before releasing him without charges.

While in custody, Livingston allegedly waived his constitutional rights against self-incrimination and admitted that he had threatened to tell the woman's husband about the affair in exchange for money and sex.

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Brian Sexton, Livingston's defense attorney, disputed much of the prosecution's account, including the suggestion that the woman and his client had broken up last year after he found out she had been lying about having a husband.

"She wanted him to shut up about the affair and offered him that cash. Regarding blackmail or sending photos, that was all consensual, there was no blackmail," Sexton said. "I think was the evidence is going to show is that this relationship continued — she did not want her husband to know and was willing to do whatever it took so her husband wouldn't know."

The defense attorney said the woman had "said all the right words" while surreptitiously recording with her phone beneath a pillow, telling Livingston the next day that she was going to go to the police and questioning whether anyone would believe him.

"This has all been a set-up to try to entrap him and try to make him look like the bad guy to her husband, because she knew her husband was going to find out about the affair," Sexton said.

The woman sought and received an emergency order of protection against Livingston last month, and was served in open court Thursday.

Livingston is due back at the Skokie courthouse Feb. 16 for a status hearing. Prosecutors said they plan to seek an extension to the order of protection at that hearing and ask a grand jury to indict him at a later date.