A trial date of April 13, 2027 has been set for the lawsuit brought by a former Riverside Brookfield High School student against RBHS District 208 and Gary Prokes, the former head of RBTV, in which the former student alleges that Prokes first groomed her and then sexually abused her while she was a student at RBHS from 2014 to 2018.
The plaintiff is referred to by the pseudonym Jane Doe in the lawsuit which was filed in June 2025. Tom Cronin, Jane Doe’s attorney, said Prokes’s participation in the case has been stayed while he is under criminal investigation. Riverside Director of Public Safety Matt Buckley did not return a message from the Landmark asking about the status of that investigation. Prokes, a graduate of RHHS, retired in 2023 after working at RBHS for 37 years.
RBHS achieved a temporary victory last fall when Cook County Circuit Court Judge Frank Andreau dismissed RBHS District 208 from the case but Cronin then filed an amended complaint on Nov. 17 with more specific allegations that school officials knew of or should have been aware of Prokes’s misconduct which brought the school district back into the case. Lawyers for RBHS again tried to get the complaints against RBHS dismissed from the case but failed. The case is now assigned to Cook County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Chrones who denied motions to dismiss counts against RBHS this spring…