Two former Illinois child welfare workers who investigated allegations of abuse involving a 5-year-old boy who was later beaten to death will face a bench trial this week.
Opening arguments have wrapped and prosecutors began calling witnesses Monday in a case that continues to impact McHenry County, northwest of Chicago, more than four years after AJ Freund's murder.
AJ's mother, JoAnn Cunningham, has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. His father, Andrew Freund Sr. 61, pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated battery of a child, involuntary manslaughter, and concealment of a homicide and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The two Department of Children and Family Services workers, Carlos Acosta and Andrew Polovin, are facing three felony counts each of endangering the life and health of a minor and reckless conduct.
Acosta worked at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in the months before Andrew “AJ” Freund’s body was found in a shallow grave near his family’s Crystal Lake home in April 2019, days after his parents reported him missing.
Polovin was Acosta's supervisor.
Both had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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Acosta’s lawyer has said all procedures were followed, and the two people responsible for the boy’s death, his parents, are behind bars, but prosecutors allege the defendants closed AJ's case without recommending protective action.
At that point, prosecutors said, AJ had no one to speak up for him.
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Set to take the stand in the bench trial Monday is Kimberly Shipbaugh, a Crystal Lake police officer who filed a report and took protective custody of AJ and his brother in December of 2018 and ultimately contacted DCFS on the case.
