CPD applicant's interview leads to arrests in 2016 kidnapping, rape investigation, prosecutors say

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Stephon Arnold walked into a Chicago Police Department station last October looking for a job, but prosecutors said details he revealed during his interview led them to uncovering he and his brother were connected to a nearly decade-old kidnapping and rape investigation.

Arnold, 30, and his brother, Sherrow Harris, 35, were both arrested and charged on Friday with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sexual assault after investigators said they violently assaulted two 18-year-old women back in 2016, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.

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That investigation had been suspended until late last year when Arnold "applied to the Chicago Police Department and consented to a polygraph," prosecutors revealed during a Friday hearing for the accused brothers.

"On that polygraph form, [Arnold] made admissions regarding this incident," prosecutors said. "The details provided by [defendant] Arnold... allowed detectives to cross reference the facts and locate the original case incident report from 2016."

According to police and court records reviewed by the I-Team, the night of Sept. 10, 2016, started as a sneaker shopping expedition at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg for the two young women, along with Harris and his cousin, who has since died.

Both women would later tell investigators the men took them to the mall to find "new Jordan 12 shoes" but when the store at the mall did not have their sizes, Harris and his cousin told the women they should go back to their apartment. There, they would meet someone the men knew who had the shoes in their sizes for sale, according to the police report.

Both men and women went to a south side apartment near 72nd and South Aberdeen, where prosecutors said Arnold was waiting to rob the women of their jewelry at gunpoint, and then force them into having sex with Harris and the brothers' cousin.

Police records state both women went to the hospital the next day for injuries they suffered. Chicago police were called, took a report, noting where the victims alleged the crime occurred, but the investigation was ultimately suspended, according to prosecutors.

The investigation would have remained suspended if it wasn't for Arnold applying for a job at the Chicago police department this past October.

After detectives began to look into the statements Arnold made in his application's polygraph statement, prosecutors said the investigators found Arnold and Harris had both been previously arrested by Chicago police, and during those arrests, they listed the apartment near 72nd and Aberdeen as their home address.

Nearly nine years after the crime took place, prosecutors said in court on Friday that both victims identified Harris and his cousin in a photo lineup this past week.

Investigators believe the armed robbery by Arnold that took place at the brothers' apartment was "a ruse."

After reading Arnold his Miranda rights, prosecutors said he made statements to investigators "regarding the armed robbery being a ruse so that the other two [Harris and their cousin] could have sex with the victims."

Arnold and Harris are currently being held in jail, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Department.

The brothers have been appointed public defenders, but according to the court docket, they have yet to enter a plea to the charges they face.

A spokesperson for the Chicago police department would not comment on this specific case, but said background checks are critical when interviewing potential employees.

"While we will not comment on specific individuals, the Chicago police department conducts a thorough pre-employment background investigation process, including a polygraph examination," a spokesperson told the I-Team. "The polygraph examination is an important component of the background process to determine an applicant's eligibility for hire."