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| Smith (Illinois Dept of Corrections) |
A wave of robberies rolled through nearby Lake View early on September 14, 2013, as five victims reported being robbed and sometimes beaten by a groups of two to six men.
On Friday, an 18-year-old pleaded guilty to being involved in two of those crimes.
Thomas Smith received two four-year terms to be served concurrently after he pleaded guilty to one count of robbery and one count of attempted armed robbery.
Smith was charged with being part of a group that attacked and robbed a victim near Clifton and School at 1:30AM that day. He was also charged in connection with one of two robberies at gunpoint that played out two hours later at Southport and Roscoe.
No one else was charged in connection with these two crimes.
Grand Jury Returns 47 Counts Against Iowa Teen
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| Mahalbasic (Cook Co. Sheriff’s Dept) |
An 18-year-old Waterloo, Iowa, man has seen his legal challenges go from bad to extremely bad after a Cook County grand jury returned a 47-count, 98-page “true bill” in connection with alleged sex trafficking at a Belmont Avenue hotel.
Ferid Mahalbasic was originally charged last month with involuntary servitude and involuntary sexual servitude of a minor after he allegedly brought two teenage girls, one of whom is a minor, to Chicago from Iowa.
Once they were here, proseuctors allege, Mahalbasic began offering the girls as prostitutes in an operation that he based in a City Suites Hotel guest room near the Belmont Red Line station.
Prosecutors say Mahalbasic threatened at least one of the girls if she did not give him the money she collected from Johns.
But the Cook County grand jury returned far more than just two counts agains Mahalbasic, who now faces 47 individual criminal charges:
• 14 counts of various forms of involuntary servitude
• 6 counts of various forms of sex servitude
• 4 counts of aggravated trafficking/recruiting
• 6 counts of trafficking for labor
• 3 counts of promoting juvenile prostitution
• 1 count of juvenile prostitution for profit
• 6 counts of various forms of kidnapping
• 7 counts of promoting prostitution
