Head of juvenile prison schools resigns after arrest

ST. CHARLES – The superintendent of the Illinois Juvenile Prison Schools, Kye D. Gaffey, 41, said he resigned his position Tuesday after his arrest last week in St. Charles.

Gaffey and his wife, Jennifer, 42, of Sterling, both were charged late Aug. 15 with misdemeanor criminal trespass and criminal damage to a glass patio door at a house in the 0-99 block of Southgate Course, St. Charles.

They both posted $1,500 bond and are scheduled to appear in Kane County Branch Court on Sept. 19.

Gaffey said he resigned his $110,244 position to avoid further embarrassment to the department. He said he worked in that position previously from 2000 to 2005 then returned in 2011.

St. Charles Police spokesman Paul McCurtain said according to police reports, a neighbor who was keeping an eye on the house called police at about 11 p.m. Aug. 15 to report that she saw people inside the house. No one was supposed to be home at the time, McCurtain said.

Police checked the residence and first found Jennifer Gaffey and then located her husband, Kye Gaffey, McCurtain said.

“They went into the house to determine if the living conditions were acceptable for their son,” McCurtain said on the reason given to police. Gaffey said his wife shares custody of a 6-year-old boy with a man, who now lives with another woman in the Southgate Course house.

Gaffey said the boy reported there was no furniture in the house, that he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor behind a curtain and that there was cat feces all over.

“We never went inside,” Gaffey said. “We were looking in the window. That is why we were there. … Custody is an ongoing battle. It’s something we are trying to take care of in the courts. It’s not a good situation.”

Gaffey said his wife was never married to the boy’s father, but Peter Smith, who said he is Jennifer Gaffey’s ex-husband, said they were married from 2005 until 2011 when the divorce was final. Smith also said Gaffey’s assertions about the condition of his house are untrue and inspired by a custody battle.

“He sleeps on a mattress on the floor because he falls out of bed,” Smith said of his son.

Smith’s girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter also lives with the couple, he said, and has a similar sleeping arrangement.

“We all sleep on mattresses on the floor – all of us,” Smith said.

Smith said the house has furniture and no cat feces on the floor.

“We have two cats,” Smith said. “One cat got sick with a bladder infection, and he urinated on the floor a couple of times, but now he’s perfectly healthy.”

The neighbor who called police had been feeding the cats and watching the house while the couple and the two children were on vacation in Wisconsin, Smith said.

Gaffey said neither he nor his wife ever went inside the house

“If that was the case, I would have been charged with a felony,” Gaffey said. “I was outside waiting for my wife. I had no reason to go into the house.”