A father with children in the Carterville school district addresses officials during a board of education meeting about why they had not acted sooner to place an assistant football coach, accused of sexual abuse, on leave. (Photo by Lylee Gibbs, Saluki Local Reporting Lab)
Article Summary
- A Carterville assistant football coach who was recently placed on leave faced disciplinary action in 2009 for inappropriate conduct, according to school district records.
- John “Jake” Wakey is the subject of two investigations, including one for alleged sexual abuse, based on a tip first received by the FBI in November 2024.
- The school board said the district also received two anonymous reports in February 2025 — just three months after the FBI tip came in — alleging that Wakey had sent inappropriate text messages to students.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
CARTERVILLE — John “Jake” Wakey, the Carterville High School assistant football coach and teacher at the center of an ongoing criminal sexual abuse investigation, had been previously disciplined for inappropriately texting students and letting them hang out at his house late at night without other adults present, according to school records.
Wakey was suspended for 10 days without pay in December 2009 by the Carterville Unit 5 District’s Board of Education, according to records obtained by Capitol News Illinois and the Saluki Local Reporting Lab under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
In an eight-count “notice of charges,” the district at the time also accused him of drinking in front of students before driving to catch the bus headed for a football game that he helped coach. It also said that he let students remain in his home unsupervised.
He did not face criminal charges.
Wakey joined the Carterville district in the fall of 2003, days after he ended court supervision for a misdemeanor conviction for providing liquor to minors earlier that same year in Coles County, about 150 miles north of Carterville, court records show.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office announced last month it had opened a criminal sexual abuse investigation into a district employee, but didn’t name Wakey at the time. CNI and the Saluki Lab later reported that Wakey was the subject of the abuse allegations, upon obtaining three subpoenas served to the district seeking school records about him and 17 former students.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the criminal investigation, and the Illinois State Board of Education, which is conducting a separate investigation into his teacher’s license, served the subpoenas on the school district.
A subpoena is a legal process that compels the production of records or interviews in an investigation. It does not indicate that wrongdoing has occurred, or detail any allegations, and Wakey — who has worked in the district for more than two decades — has not been charged with a crime. He has not responded to multiple calls and text messages to his cellphone seeking comment.
The announcement of a criminal sexual abuse investigation on Feb. 21 resulted in the district placing Wakey on paid administrative leave — an action that came 15 months after the FBI first received a tip accusing an employee, later identified to be Wakey, of inappropriate sexual conduct involving a former student.
The FBI, which first received the tip alleging sexual abuse in November 2024, immediately determined that it didn’t have jurisdiction to investigate, and passed the tip to local law enforcement.
The district had been informed of the FBI tip by local law enforcement when it was first received, but said it didn’t have enough information to contact child welfare services or conduct its own internal investigation at that time.
The Williamson County sheriff also said recently that his office could not officially open an investigation until last month, when a former student agreed to go on the record with his allegations. The sheriff said investigators believe there may be multiple victims, and that his office has since received numerous tips concerning Wakey.
School district received other tips
Carterville School Board President David Schwartz said during a board meeting Thursday night the district also received two anonymous reports in February 2025 — just three months after the FBI tip came in — alleging that Wakey had sent inappropriate text messages to students.
Those tips came through an online service, FriendWatch, a grassroots organization that gives teens an instant, virtual and anonymous way to report concerns.
The district said that it contacted FriendWatch to see whether the company could provide additional details. But FriendWatch told school officials it could not, because the people making the reports did not share identities or contact information.
Wakey denied having sent those texts flagged to the school district by FriendWatch in February 2025, according to the district. He had also initially denied the similar allegations from his prior disciplinary case in 2009.
Since the alleged sexual abuse became public in February of this year, the district has also received two additional reports concerning inappropriate text messages —allegedly sent in March 2022 and November 2025 by Wakey to both a former and a current student.
The district has since launched its own internal investigation into these reports, Schwartz said Thursday night, and has also provided information and evidence about the messages to the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office and ISBE.
One Carterville district parent, addressing the board Thursday night, said he was concerned with the amount of time that had passed between the FBI receiving the tip and the district placing Wakey on leave. Given the prior allegations, “maybe there should have been more done,” he said.
In the letter, read aloud by Schwartz and signed by school Superintendent Sarah Barnstable, the district said it is taking steps to improve the safety and well-being of the school community. That includes more frequent training for appropriate social media usage, a review of board policies governing employee conduct and a prohibition on the use of personal technology for school-related communications.
“We take any allegation involving inappropriate conduct with students extremely seriously, and we recognize the concern this situation has caused for our students, families, staff and alumni,” the letter read, which was sent out to district parents during the meeting.
The school board held a lengthy executive session during Thursday night’s meeting, but did not take any public action concerning Wakey’s employment. He continues to receive his $3,300 biweekly paycheck, records show.
This story was produced for Capitol News Illinois through the Saluki Local Reporting Lab, supported by grant funding from the SIU Foundation and the Illinois Press Foundation.
Jackson Brandhorst is a student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and a senior member of the Daily Egyptian, SIU’s student newspaper. Brandhorst can be reached at jbrandhorst@dailyegyptian.com.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
