Springfield Police Officer Taylor Staff was arrested today for sexual assault, custodial sexual misconduct, and official misconduct. He was booked into the Sangamon County Jail on $250,000 bail, but has since been released. Not much has been released to the public about the specifics of Staff's crimes other than some brief statements from the Illinois State Police saying that Staff has at least three victims and his crimes took place while he was on duty between January and July of 2020.
Without further details we can only speculate as to the depths of Staff's depravity. The crime of custodial sexual misconduct in the state of Illinois is defined as:
"(a) A person commits custodial sexual misconduct when: (1) he or she is an employee of a penal system and engages in sexual conduct or sexual penetration with a person who is in the custody of that penal system; (2) he or she is an employee of a treatment and detention facility and engages in sexual conduct or sexual penetration with a person who is in the custody of that treatment and detention facility; or (3) he or she is an employee of a law enforcement agency and engages in sexual conduct or sexual penetration with a person who is in the custody of a law enforcement agency or employee." - https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=100-0693&print=true&write=
From that definition we can conclude that Staff is accused of engaging in sexual conduct with at least one person who was in his custody. The crime of criminal sexual assault in the state of Illinois is defined as:
"(a) A person commits criminal sexual assault if that person commits an act of sexual penetration and: (1) uses force or threat of force; (2) knows that the victim is unable to understand the nature of the act or is unable to give knowing consent; (3) is a family member of the victim, and the victim is under 18 years of age; or (4) is 17 years of age or over and holds a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim, and the victim is at least 13 years of age but under 18 years of age." - https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=072000050K11-1.20
From that definition we can conclude that Staff used force, a threat of force, knew the victim was not able to give knowing consent due to an inability to understand (ex: retarded), was a family member under the age of 18, or he simply held a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim. That last possibility is consistent with the other charge of custodial sexual misconduct. There were three victims, but the media has not said if there is more than one count of violating each statute. It is possible that the charge of official misconduct could have been some random illegal activity committed against one person, the charge of custodial sexual conduct could have been from what would have otherwise been consensual sex with a detainee, and the sexual assault could be from raping a third person. It is also possible that he was charged with violating those statutes against each of the three victims which would be consistent with detaining and ******** members of the public.
We do not know anything about the victims or exactly how he violated them. They could have been female prostitutes that he let off with a warning if the got him off, men raped through the ****, or maybe even teenagers, but the lack of any child molestation charges indicates that they were probably older. We could continue speculating, but would rather wait until more is known.
According to public records Taylor Nicholas Staff is a 26 year old resident of Springfield, Illinois. His last known address was 2323 S. Willemore Ave, Springfield, Illinois 62704. We are making that address available because Staff has been charged with what appears to be predatory sex crimes. We consider him a danger to the community and want people in his area to be aware of the danger. Please do not use that address for any unlawful purpose.