Courts
Maher Kassem, 63, was detained in jail following a hearing Tuesday after he was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Prosecutors in Douglas County, Kansas, charged Terrence Shannon Jr. on Dec. 5 with rape or an alternative count of sexual battery. After an arrest warrant was issued, the university suspended him on Dec. 28 from “all team activities, effective immediately.”
The 2019 law consolidated some 650 retirement funds for municipal public safety workers into two funds — one for firefighters and another for police officers. Chicago is not included.
Hilco to Pay $12.25M Over Botched Smokestack Implosion in Little Village. Here’s How to File a Claim
In April 2020, a smokestack implosion in Little Village blanketed the community in dust, endangering the health of residents during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, eligible Little Village residents have until March 26 to file claims for compensation.
Chicago rules require unscheduled one-way buses from outside the Chicago area to get advance approval from the city to drop people off. Violators can be fined $3,000 and have their vehicles impounded, the mandate says.
Fewer than 2% of Chicago’s signalized intersections have an accessible pedestrian signal that provides auditory and tactile guidance to blind, low-vision and deafblind pedestrians — despite more than two decades of requests and years of internal acknowledgement from city staffers about the need for such accommodations.
Helen Grace Caldwell, 58, was charged in Chicago’s federal court Thursday with wire fraud. Her arraignment has not yet been scheduled.
Under a deal with prosecutors reached last year, the 28-year-old Chicago rapper, whose real name is Herbert Wright III, entered a guilty plea in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts, to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false statements. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed several counts of aggravated identity theft.
Deshawn Lucas, 33, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and unlawful use of a weapon, as well as individual counts of aggravated battery and burglary.
The video of that reenactment – which Jessica Logan’s lawyers maintain she was coerced into performing – was used as a key piece of evidence in her 2021 conviction on first-degree murder charges.
The February trial date for alleged Highland Park parade gunman Robert Crimo III has been removed, with a new trial date coming either later this year or in early 2025.
“I’d like to think it will serve as a deterrent,” Elmhurst University professor Constance Mixon said. “But none of the other 37 convictions served as a deterrent. It ought to make people think twice. But I don’t know. I’d like to be optimistic.”
National data from the FBI covering January to September 2023 showed an 8.2% drop in all violent crime, including a 15.6% drop in murders, compared to the same period in 2022. These declines were seen in cities over 1 million people and those under 10,000, and across all four regional quadrants of the US.
Joseph Czuba, 71, is accused of fatally stabbing of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and wounding Hanan Shaheen on Oct. 14 in in Plainfield. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared in court in person for the first time Wednesday, as a judge pushed back his upcoming federal racketeering and bribery charges to October.
Tom Girardi also faces federal wire fraud charges in Chicago, where he is accused of stealing about $3 million from family members of victims of a 2018 Lion Air crash that killed 189 people.