A former Chicago attorney has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for sexual assault
In January 2021, David Pasulka, now 67, was charged with sexually assaulting two women, including a client and an employee of his law firm.
According to court records, between September 2016 and May 2017, Pasulka, then 61 years old, repeatedly sexually assaulted a 43-year-old woman whose children he was appointed to represent as guardian ad litem — an attorney who represents the best interests of children in the midst of custody disputes.
Pasulka told the woman "how powerful he was and how he has great influence over the family court judges and her custody case," according to a bond proffer read in court Wednesday. He then told her to "be smart" before sexually assaulting her.
He also was charged with sexually assaulting a woman who worked as a paralegal at his law firm, David P. Pasulka and Associates. That woman told prosecutors Pasulka "continuously sexually abused and assaulted" her, and threatened to use his position of power to destroy her reputation in the legal community.
This past April, a judge convicted him of criminal sexual assault. On Wednesday, the judge sentenced him to 7 years in prison. As part of his sentence, he must register as a sex offender for life.
In July 2020, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission accused him of offering to recommend a parent get full custody of her children if she had sex with him and touching her inappropriately during a meeting in 2016.
At one point, the woman said Pasulka told her she had to "do a little extra something," that she was a "smart girl" and if she really wanted custody of her children, she would have sex with him, according to the complaint.
The complaint also detailed allegations of repeated sexual assault of several employees at his law firm, Pasulka & Associates.
The complaint sparked outrage within the domestic division of the Cook County Circuit Court, where divorce and child custody cases are decided.
Pasulka chaired a secretive committee that selects child representatives and guardians ad litem — attorneys appointed to represent the best interests of children in the midst of custody disputes — for more than 20 years. An attorney who works in the division wrote a letter to Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans and Judge Grace Dickler, who oversees the domestic division, calling for the two judges to resign for allowing Pasulka to remain in power.
In the letter, Attorney Lawrence Thompson said Pasulka had the ability to blackball opposing attorneys from a list of approved child representatives and guardians ad litem, preventing them from working on the often-lucrative cases.
"The administration selected a bully-pervert, and put him in charge of regulating which of his associates would be the high-income in-crowd in the Cook County domestic relations courts," the letter said.
After the ARDC filed disciplinary charges against Pasulka, he was suspended from erving as guardian ad litem in Cook County and removed him as the chair of the committee. In January 2021, he was stripped his license to practice law in Illinois.
