Only 750 for special sauce

Daily Herald | DuPage County

A former Wheaton North High School student was given a chance Wednesday to keep a crude prank off his permanent record, but not before a judge gave him a good scolding.

Marco Castro, 17, pleaded guilty earlier to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct for tainting salad dressing in the school cafeteria with his bodily fluids.

Castro must serve 120 hours of public service with an AIDS-related agency, pay a $750 fine, continue counseling, stay in college and write an apology to school officials for the Dec. 6 incident.

A judge told Castro if he does all that — and stays out of trouble — he’ll erase the conviction from the teen’s record after two years.

“This was beyond stupid,” DuPage Associate Judge Terence Sheen said. “It was insulting and outrageous. If you prove to me you’re worthy of another chance, in two years, then I will give it to you.

“If you don’t, you will carry this (conviction) with you the rest of your life.”

Castro admitted taking a bottle of the salad dressing into a school bathroom, ejaculating into it and returning the tainted contents to the student commons, where juniors and seniors eat lunch.

Administrators became aware of what happened shortly thereafter, when a group of students reported Castro. Afterward, the senior was expelled. He had enough credits to graduate.

Castro told police he developed the prank after watching a movie which features a series of crude stunts.

“The defendant made a bad decision,” prosecutor Todd Fanter said in urging a tough punishment. “He didn’t just make a mistake. He made a decision that hurt a lot of people, and his sentence should reflect that.”

No one became ill because of the act, and Castro voluntarily underwent testing to ensure he did not have a communicable disease. He received a clean bill of health, officials said.

Castro apologized to school officials, students, their families and his parents and younger brother, who still attends Wheaton North and has suffered ridicule.

“I have no explanation for what I did,” Castro told the judge. “I felt bad after I did it.”

His attorney, Harry Smith, urged the judge to fashion the sentence in such a way that would allow the misdemeanor to be cleared from Castro’s record so that he will be able to attend a reputable college and pursue a career in engineering.

Smith noted Castro has been punished, including missing out on the rest of his senior year. He also was denied a chance to go to a more prestigious college, plus the public humiliation he caused himself and family.

“It has not been without consequences,” Smith said.

To ensure this never happens again, Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 officials said they switched to industrial-sized containers for salad dressing that can’t be as easily smuggled out of the room.