Prosecutors drop charges against Allen Lee

WOODSTOCK - Prosecutors on Wednesday dropped charges against a Cary-Grove High School senior charged in connection with authoring a violently descriptive essay in his creative writing class.

During a brief morning court appearance, prosecutors told McHenry County Judge Robert Beaderstadt that they would no longer pursue disorderly conduct charges against 18-year-old Allen Lee.

“We knew that this conclusion would be reached by the way of a motion, way of trial or way of agreement,” said Lee’s attorney, Tom Loizzo.

McHenry County State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi said the case was dropped because his office and school officials found that Lee did not pose a safety threat.

“Safety was and is our first priority ... safety for Mr. Lee, his classmates, teachers and everyone else at Cary-Grove High School,” Bianchi said. “This office believed that justice could best be served by asking the court to dismiss the disorderly conduct charge against student Allen Lee.”

Lee was arrested in April for writing an in-class essay that referenced shooting people and having sex with dead bodies.

In the 347-word essay, he wrote to his teacher Nora Capron: “No quarrel on your qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don’t be surprised on inspiring the first [Cary-Grove] shooting.”

Lee, whose appearance in court was waived on Wednesday so he could take a final exam, was placed in an off-campus study program for about two weeks following his arrest, but he suffered no other punishment by the school district, Loizzo said.

The student’s attorneys on Wednesday, outside of court, continued to insist that the essay should never have resulted in criminal charges. Loizzo said Lee precisely followed the “free writing” assignment’s directions, which told students to write about whatever they wanted and not to censor themselves.

“Allen wrote an essay that created an international disturbance – I would call that pretty creative,” Loizzo said. “If I were grading that paper, I would give it an ‘A’ plus, plus.”

Bianchi, however, said for the first time Wednesday that the teacher routinely advised her class about the consequences of inappropriate writing.

“Ms. Capron announced, on many, many occasions that she was a mandated reporter and that whatever the students write, the writing had to be classroom appropriate,” Bianchi said. “If not, the person and or writing would have to be reported to a guidance counselor and or the principal.”

For more on this story, read tomorrow’s Northwest Herald.