Ex-state inspector gets a year in federal prison for groping women at doggy daycares

A former state Department of Agriculture employee has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for groping five women during inspections of Chicago-area doggy daycares and lying about it in a civil lawsuit filed by one of the alleged victims.

Jose Guillen, 43, of Melrose Park, pleaded guilty last year to obstruction of justice, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he “intentionally touched (the victim’s) buttocks for purposes of his own sexual gratification” and lied when he denied it under oath.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow imposed the one-year prison term on Wednesday.

According to prosecutors, Guillen groped five separate victims between 2019 and 2021 while working as an animal and animal products investigator, assigned to conduct on-site inspections of animal care facilities in Cook County.

In 2021, Guillen knowingly lied during a sworn deposition in a federal civil lawsuit filed by one of the alleged victims, Leah Bindig, saying he had accidentally touched Bindig’s buttocks during an on-site inspection as he was trying to break a fall.

“It was accidental,” Guillen said during the deposition, according to a transcript included in the indictment. “I accidentally had my hand, it went like in that direction … I have two left feet so obviously I, I’m a little clumsy.”

He also falsely denied touching other alleged victims in the same deposition, according to the indictment.

WBBM-TV broke the story about the allegations against Guillen in 2021. Bindig, who owns Aeslin Pup Hub locations in Bucktown, Noble Square and Ukrainian Village, told CBS that Guillen backed her into a watercooler during an inspection in 2019 and asked to see a photo of her in a bikini.

Surveillance video from the facility allegedly shows the encounter.

“Then he starts putting his hand on my shoulder, on my arm, on my back,” Bindig told the station. “I’m being inspected. I’m not being — we’re not on a date.”

In asking for up to two years in prison, prosecutors said that after Guillen was charged, law enforcement found stored photographs of other women on his electronic devices that appeared to have been taken surreptitiously from behind “at times while the women were bending over,” such as to pick up something from the floor.

“None of these women consented to the defendant’s lecherous advances,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amarjeet Bhachu and Diane MacArthur wrote in a recent filing. “It was only when confronted by a series of accusers who were brave enough to step forward to put a stop to his misconduct that the defendant capitulated and accepted responsibility for his serial wrongdoing by pleading guilty.”

In a letter to the court, Guillen wrote he was “terribly sorry” for the pain he caused others and knows “that only I am to blame.”

“I know that I betrayed the trust that was placed in me by others, especially the persons whom I violated,” Guillen wrote. “I know that I cannot go back in time and change it all; if I could, I would.”

Guillen resigned from the Department of Agriculture after the allegations came to light.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com