Videos Appear To Show Crestwood Cop Hitting, Choking Woman

CRESTWOOD, IL — A Crestwood police officer accused of choking and beating a woman in front of three children said he doesn’t care “what the populace thinks” after videos of the alleged assault surfaced on YouTube.

Several people familiar with Pavoni identified him as the shirtless man depicted in the videos attacking the woman.

Dino Pavoni, 39, is facing felony charges of strangulation, domestic battery resulting in bodily injury and domestic battery committed in the presence of a child under 16. The Crestwood cop is also charged with misdemeanor interference with a report of domestic violence. Pavoni has been placed on paid administrative leave and is still drawing his $105,000 annual salary as his criminal case winds through the Indiana courts.

During the early morning hours of May 17, 2020, Portage, Indiana, police went to the Lake Shore Camp Resort, a 45-minute drive from Chicago, for domestic disturbance call. When officers arrived, the woman was sitting on the floor of the camper calling for help, police said.

Complaining she felt dizzy, the woman told the officer that Pavoni hit her several times. She said she ended up on the floor and yelled for the children to call 911. She told the officer that one of the children took cellphone video of the assault, and the officer reported photographing red marks on her neck.

Police said one of the teenagers played videos of the physical confrontation, which the officer then recorded with his phone.

Pavoni was standing outside the camper with another Portage police officer, the report noted. Pavoni said that the woman woke him upset when she could not close the camper’s awning.

The woman told police that Pavoni grabbed her phone and threw it into the road while she was trying to call 911. The phone was broken when she eventually found it. Police said Pavoni could be seen flipping over a picnic table on video.

Police said Pavoni denied hitting the woman and alleged that she attacked him after the couple went inside the camper.

The Crestwood cop stopped cooperating when officers told him they had already viewed videos provided by one of the teenagers and were placing him under arrest, the report said. During their interviews with Pavoni, officers also said that Pavoni's eyes appeared bloodshot, his speech was slurred, and he smelled of alcohol.

The woman told police there were “numerous weapons” inside the trailer, as well as in Pavoni’s Crestwood patrol car parked in the campground, the report said. Officers recovered two Glock pistols, a Sig-Sauer pistol and another unspecified firearm, as well as a duty belt with three sets of handcuffs. The report noted that all the weapons “appeared to belong to the Crestwood Police Department.”

The first YouTube video lasts 5 minutes and 17 seconds. In it, a shirtless Pavoni corners the woman on the bed as she yells at him to get out of the camper. They argue about Pavoni apparently calling one of the teens a derogatory name. He shoves the woman as another child whimpers off-camera.

The teen admonishes the child to “be quiet, or you’ll get into trouble next. You’ll get hit.” As the teen continues phone-recording the altercation, she tells the child not to look, but he replies that he has too.

There is a crash, then the sound of kids screaming and someone gagging. The screen goes black in the darkened camper as the teen moves the phone’s camera away. When it focuses again on Pavoni, he is hovering over the woman, who is sitting on the bed.

Pavoni swings his arms. He holds what police describe in the report as a "holstered weapon," while the woman tells the teen to “keep recording please.”

The next video that follows is 2 minutes and 22 seconds long. The woman can be heard telling her Pavoni, “you’ve already hit me three times,” and saying she would press charges. Pavoni is seen punching the walls and counters inside the camper, as the woman reminds him that the camper belongs to her parents. He is also captured on video approaching the teen girl, who begins apologizing and him “I love you.”

The video ends with the woman telling the kids to call 911, and then what appears to be Pavoni pressing her against the wall before the video cuts off.

In the final 18-second clip, the woman can be seen lying on the floor gasping and gagging as Pavoni steps over her and the kids ask if she is okay.

The police report references one of the children telling Pavoni “you choked her,” although this is not included in the clips that surfaced on YouTube. During Pavoni’s bond hearing before a Porter County judge, prosecutors said the children were unsure if the woman was still alive.

The report further stated when asked if there had been a history of domestic violence with Pavoni, the woman said there had not been in the past ten years.

Asked if these were the same videos taken on May 17, 2020, Sgt. Rob Maynard of the Portage Police Department explained in an email that while he had not seen the videos logged as digital evidence, “the officer’s description of the video recording given in the written report does appear to match the events occurring in these YouTube videos.”

Mayor Lou Presta confirmed that Pavoni has been on paid administrative leave since his arrest last May, still drawing a salary of $105,000. Since the videos’ appearance on YouTube, Presta tweeted that “Sgt. Dino Pavoni has been placed on paid administrative leave by the [Village of Crestwood] upon the advice of legal counsel for the village. Because of the ongoing investigation there are further comments at this time.”

Presta told Patch that “the village’s hands are tied,” citing unspecified cases where the Cook County Sheriff’s Department was supposedly sued by officers who were fired or placed on unpaid leave when accused of wrongdoing. After Pavoni’s case is resolved in criminal courts, Presta said the village’s police commission will open their own internal investigation.

Pavoni’s case is set for a status hearing on April 5, the chief prosecutor for Porter County said. He was unaware of the videos being shared on YouTube.

Since the incident, Pavoni told Patch that he’s been “sober for eight months” and has been going to counseling. Pavoni also said that he and the woman have never been happier. He added that it doesn’t affect him what people think since the videos surfaced on YouTube.

“I know what I’m doing to fix stuff,” he said. “The people who matter to me know who I am.”