Chicago Criminal Lawyer Blog

March 23, 2022

Principal Cleared in Water Bottle Battery

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

This is a fairly weird case. A principal was playing “child-like games” in the cafeteria, when he lost control of a water bottle and struck a cafeteria worker. The water bottle allegedly caused “permanent disfigurement” according to the criminal charges filed against the principal. At first, it appeared that no criminal charges would be filed, but the principal alleges that a conspiracy between the cafeteria worker and a lead detective investigating the case resulted in him being way overcharged with two counts of aggravated battery resulting in permanent disfigurement. It is unclear how the cafeteria worker was disfigured by the water bottle or how a water bottle could disfigure someone unless it was thrown by Nolan Ryan. Other attempts to characterize the bottle called it “a hard water canteen.” The defendant allegedly suffered a concussion and an eye abrasion that required stitches.

The principal is now suing the school district, the cafeteria worker, and the detective who pursued charges against him. Below, we will take a look at why he might have a case.

Understanding Battery Charges

March 18, 2022

Father Facing Charges After 3-Year-Old Shoots Mother

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

A Chicago-area father is facing weapons charges after his 3-year-old son shot and killed his own mother while playing with the weapon in the back seat. The father is now facing a misdemeanor gun charge. The mother was brought to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. The child has been offered trauma counseling services that he will likely need for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, the father is facing a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully transporting a weapon. The father had a license for the gun, but transporting it in the backseat of your vehicle while your 3-year-old is back there is considered a crime.

Accidental shootings involving children are now a major problem across the United States. Since 2015, over 2,000 individuals have been accidentally shot by children. 90% of those individuals were other children with about 70% of the shootings happening in the home. The pandemic and quarantine made the situation worse, with accidental shootings rising over that period.

March 16, 2022

Two Men Face First-Degree Murder Charges in Crime Spree

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

It took prosecutors 45 minutes to read through all of the charges filed against two men who committed dozens of batteries, armed robberies, and at least one murder over the course of four hours. Police said they left nearly two dozen victims over the course of the crime spree and horrifically beat a man to death in front of his family as he was trying to put up Christmas lights.

This is precisely the type of crime that Chicago is riddled with, leaves people afraid for their safety, and confounds any attempts to rationalize the event. The two men prowled the streets with a crowbar and a baseball bat looking for easy victims. One of the victims was a family man hanging Christmas lights. His children were there to witness the beating and killing of their father.

In another incident, the men terrorized a family and stole the father’s paycheck while his 4-year-old son was present in the vehicle. They are unlikely to see the outside of a prison cell in their lives for these crimes. DNA evidence from the crowbar and the bat will show the victim’s blood and connect them to the crimes.

March 11, 2022

Man Charged After Shooting Star Athlete Over Air Jordans

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

A Chicago man is facing first-degree murder charges after murdering a star athlete to take his Air Jordans. The victim was an avid collector of old sneakers and had arranged to meet someone to purchase the vintage apparel. Two men who were apparently hiding nearby rushed the athlete as he was placing the sneakers in his trunk. One of the men shot him in the chest. Weirdly, neither man grabbed the shoes, which was the apparent payoff of the shooting. His mother speculated that the victim’s size and physique may have scared the attackers off. Yet another senseless death.

Of the two men involved in the robbery attempt, only one is facing murder charges. It is unclear if the other man has been charged with a crime or not. However, since he was involved in a robbery attempt, he could very easily face charges for the murder. Police would need to establish that the man conspired to engage in the robbery attempt. However, Chicago does not like felony murder charges, especially recently under Kim Foxx’s administration. The man will likely be charged with armed robbery, but the police have yet to issue any obvious charges against the second man.

The first man, the one who pulled the trigger, will face first-degree murder charges for the attempted robbery. However, since nothing was actually stolen, it may allow his friend to walk away from the incident without consequence.

March 9, 2022

Man Exonerated After 30 Years in Prison

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

A Chicago man who was convicted as a teen for murder will now be freed from prison after his conviction was overturned after 37 years behind bars. The National Registry of Exonerations reported that this was the 3,000th conviction lifted since 1989 when the registry began tracking overturned convictions. The suspect was released from prison after 30 years behind bars, but not because his conviction was overturned — because he was paroled. He will now have the conviction expunged from his record, for all the good it will do him, and he will seek a certificate of innocence from the state.

The defendant was framed by a group of rogue officers operating within Chicago P.D. during the late 80s. The police found the teen walking down the street, beat him, and charged him with murder. The group resorted to framing, planting evidence, and gaining confessions through torture and beatings.

Exculpatory evidence had been suppressed at the original trial and the defense attorney representing the wrongfully-convicted defendant said he did not know about witness testimony that would have tied another man to the shooting.

March 4, 2022

Officer Will Not Face Charges After Groin Punching Suspect

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

Two officers approach a suspect who opens fire on them. They return fire and strike the suspect. The suspect has now been shot. The police have him in cuffs and are searching him to determine where the gun is. The officer is patting him down. Another officer is standing near him. The officer who is doing the patdown hits his head on the other officer. Thinking it was the suspect who tried to strike him, he punches the man in the groin several times.

Bodycam footage does not show the suspect threatening the officer at the time of the arrest. The officer was relieved of duty and then charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct. However, a grand jury declined to file charges against the officer and so, the case has been dismissed.

Understanding the Problem

March 2, 2022

Carjackings on the Rise in Post-Pandemic America

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

Over the past two years, the number of carjackings in Chicago and across the country has conspicuously risen. Whether the matter is indirectly related to the pandemic, concerns about overcrowded prison cells, or something else entirely is a matter of intense debate. Another matter under debate is the problem that a number of the individuals committing the carjackings appear to be juveniles.

In one case, a victim describes detailing a client’s car when a young man approached him from behind and stuck the barrel of a gun in his back, demanding the keys. The man handed the keys over to the teen who then proceeded to strike him in the bridge of the nose before stealing the car. The car had an anti-theft system and was easily disabled remotely. It was then found abandoned hours later.

With anti-theft systems making carjackings more or less purposeless, one would imagine that carjacking would decrease. Yet that has not been the case. Why not? Well, the payoff, in fact, may not be the car at all, but the actual jacking.

February 25, 2022

Police Get Teen to Confess to a Murder He Did Not Commit

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

Defendants who confess to crimes rarely can go back into a courtroom and then say that their confession was coerced. This is especially true when the police have stopped looking for other suspects. Children are especially easy to get to confess to things they did not do because they just want the anxiety caused by the questioning to stop. Police will pressure them with more anxiety if they do not say what they want to hear and offer them incentives for confession, regardless of whether or not it is the truth. In this case, a teen confessed to shooting a clerk directly in the face during an armed robbery. He was plied with McDonald’s into the confession.

While juries will not listen to individuals who say they falsely confessed to the crimes, the courts will, especially children, and especially in a place like Chicago where there is a long history of police convicting suspects using torture and extortion.

In this case, the police told the teen that they would give him some McDonald’s if he told them he was there. The teen complied, ate the McDonalds, and was promptly charged with attempted murder, armed robbery, and enough felonies to put him behind bars for two lifetimes. Meanwhile, the teen was later able to prove that he was at a basketball game at the time of the shooting. It goes to show you just how useless police interrogations are at producing the truth and just how narrowly this boy dodged a bullet.

February 23, 2022

Arbery Killers Convicted in Federal Hate Crime Trial

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

It has been a while since we have discussed the Ahmad Arbery case. The three men convicted of killing Arbery faced state murder charges in Georgia. Each was convicted on felony murder or malice murder charges, with the ringleader facing the harshest charges of the three. But their problems did not stop there. The federal government also wanted a piece of the men and convicted them on additional charges.

This does not happen very often, but the federal government can increase the misery of certain individuals by filing federal charges against those who have already been convicted of state-level charges. In the case of the Arbery killers, the three men were tried and convicted of murder based only on the facts of the crime. In other words, the Georgia prosecutors avoided bringing race into the prosecution at all. It was a tricky maneuver because everyone knew that this was a racially motivated attack. But Georgia has a large population of rural whites, which makes it among the most conservative states in the country next to neighboring Alabama.

So state prosecutors decided to try the three men based on the facts of the altercation with Arbery and successfully gained convictions when the defendants failed to prove that Arbery had a weapon or was a threat when they rode him down in their pickup.

February 18, 2022

Man Charged With Murder of Dance Instructor

by Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C.

A Chicago man has been charged with the murder of an area dance instructor. Police do not know why the shooting occurred, but the dance instructor was shot outside of his studio and pronounced dead at the scene. He operated the studio as a non-profit and marketed it as a safe space for children.

The suspect has been tied to the shooting through his vehicle and a distinctive gold bracelet he was wearing at the time of the shooting. Police officers also have shell casings that match the weapon used, and three cell phones that place him at the shooting when it occurred. They were able to track the suspect through his vehicle, which was caught on surveillance at the time of the shooting.

Police do not know if the pair had interacted prior to the shooting, or are unwilling to tip their hand on the matter. It seems likely that the dance instructor was targeted for some unknown reason. In some cases, a criminal may put pressure on an individual to do something under the threat of death. If they fail to do what is demanded of them, then the criminal has to execute the consequence for not complying.