A Christian Gym Teacher Used Grindr to Rob Gay Men
Antoine Perteet, a Waukegan man, is accused of robbing at least three men he lured to a West Side neighborhood using Grindr.
A former Christian school teacher has been arrested and charged with committing several violent crimes against men he met through the gay dating app Grindr.
Antoine Perteet, 33, a former physical education teacher and security guard at Lions Mathematics and Science Christian Academy in Waukegan, is accused of using Grindr to target potential victims and rob them.
The school has since removed him from its faculty directory, according to a report from the Lake McHenry County Scanner.
Perteet, a Waukegan resident who is married and has four children, has been charged with three counts of armed robbery and kidnapping with a firearm, plus one count of carjacking, for his alleged involvement in three separate attacks against men on Chicago’s West Side last summer.
According to a news release from the Chicago Police Department, Perteet was arrested by members of the Vehicular Hijacking Task Force on March 26 in the 3000 block of South Sacramento Ave., in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. He was identified by victims as the man who allegedly held them against their will and robbed them at gunpoint.
The three victims included:
- A 33-year-old male, who also had his car stolen, on June 21.
- A 51-year-old male, who reported being robbed on June 24.
- A 30-year-old male, who was robbed on July 13.
All three crimes took place in the city’s North Lawndale neighborhood.
Prosecutors claim that Perteet used Grindr to track down the victims and obtain their addresses under the guise of arranging a hookup. He then attacked and robbed the men at gunpoint.
Prosecutors also allege that Perteet had an accomplice who assisted in holding the men captive and demanded they hand over their personal banking information.
Perteet appeared in Cook County court on March 27, at which time Judge Maryam Ahmad ordered him to be detained until trial, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Perteet had previously been arrested in January for his alleged role in a home invasion on October 8. He was not charged.
According to prosecutors, Perteet and his accomplice allegedly spotted a man with whom Perteet had conversed on Grindr walking his dog in Cicero, Illinois, according to CWB Chicago.
The pair allegedly followed the man and forced their way into his home at gunpoint, making him lie face down on the bedroom floor and unlock his phone and bank accounts so they could rob him of his money.
As the men went through the phone, Perteet allegedly put his foot on the man’s face and told him not to look up.
He and his accomplice then restrained the victim’s legs and arms with belts, placed painter’s tape across his eyes, and stuffed a towel in his mouth while ransacking the home for valuables.
The men allegedly absconded with a container of coins, $50 in cash, and the victim’s phone, smartwatch, and keys.
The victim in the Cicero robbery eventually freed himself and called 911. Police found surveillance video from outside the man’s home. A license plate reader reportedly put Perteet’s car in the area at the time of the invasion, as did data from Perteet’s phone. But the victim was unable to identify Perteet in a lineup.
Rosemont police pulled Perteet over the next day. During a search of his car, police officers found a black face mask and gray hoodie, similar to those worn by one of the Cicero home invaders, as well as ammunition and a stolen 9-millimeter handgun, but ended up releasing Perteet.
Police have noted that the Cicero robbery shares many similarities to an armed robbery and alleged kidnapping in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood on June 28, as well as another set of Grindr-related robberies involving at least 15 men, reports CWB Chicago.
In those 15 cases, the victims were lured to abandoned houses in the North Lawndale neighborhood by someone they met on Grindr. Once they reached those locations, they were robbed, with some tied up and forced to surrender phone and banking information, according the Chicago Police Department reports.
While dating apps have revolutionized the dating and hookup scene for gay men, they also come with risks if people too willingly or easily share personal information or geolocation data. Over the past decade, there have been several reports of entrapment schemes across the globe in which victims are lured to a location and either assaulted, robbed, blackmailed, or even arrested.
In countries that criminalize homosexuality both police and vigilantes have used dating apps to detain men suspected of being gay, and either kill them or jail them for violating anti-debauchery or anti-prostitution laws.
Stateside, most entrapment schemes have involved criminals targeting gay or bisexual men with the intent of robbing them, with criminals assuming that victims will often be too embarrassed or too fearful to report the incidents to police.
Still other users have used dating apps to arrange meetings with men with the intent of killing or maiming them. For example, in Louisiana, a man attempted to kill, mutilate and dismember a man he met on Grindr, while a suspected serial killer in Spain allegedly used dating apps to stalk and kill prospective victims.
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