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| Townsend (inset) escaped electronic monitoring to commit the robbery near Boystown this summer. |
One of the worst Lakeview predators we’ve ever reported on is heading back to prison.
Tuesday, 26-year-old Morgan Townsend of the South Shore neighborhood was sentenced to seven years in prison as a Class X felon.
Townsend was on parole for a brutal 2013 mob beating and robbery of two young men near the Belmont Red Line station when he escaped electronic monitoring and robbed a 36-year-old man near the Sheridan Red Line station this summer.
In addition to pleading guilty to the Sheridan robbery, Townsend also pleaded guilty to separate charges of residential burglary and theft on Tuesday.
Judge Shelley Sutker-Dermer sentenced Townsend to seven-years for the robbery, a concurrent seven years for the burglary, and one year for the theft charge. Felony counts of aggravated battery and unlawful restraint related to the mugging were dropped. His parole date for the latest convictions has not been set.
The theft count was filed after Townsend grabbed a woman and took her iPhone and $200 in the Loop on March 26.
Despite the fact that he was on parole and has a history of violent robbery he was placed on electronic monitoring for the phone theft, court records show.
On June 26, he burglarized a home in the 3100 block of North Orchard and was subsequently caught using the victim’s stolen Target credit card.
And in mid-July Townsend escaped from electronic monitoring, traveled to Boystown, and committed that robbery near the Sheridan Red Line station, according to authorities.
Later that morning, by sheer coincidence, the victim saw Townsend standing near a bunch of cops at the 7-Eleven parking lot on the corner of Roscoe and Halsted.
“That’s the guy who robbed me,” the victim told an officer, according to a police report. Townsend was taken into custody.
“He was on electronic monitoring at the time of his arrest,” Cook County Sheriff spokesperson Sofia Ansari said. “He left his residence unauthorized. Our electronic monitoring unit was notified when he left, attempted to contact him, but was unsuccessful, and later learned he had been arrested by the Chicago Police Department.”
“Any questions on why Townsend was originally placed on electronic monitoring should be addressed with the Chief Judge’s office,” Ansari said.
At the police station, cops searched Townsend and found four bags of cocaine, three bags of pot, and 10 bags of ecstasy in his underwear, prosecutors said. The robbery victim’s debit card was also recovered.
Also arrested in the 7-Eleven parking lot was a 22-year-old man who gave the name “Isaiah Joseph Blackwell.”
Fingerprints later revealed his actual identity to be Zikee Townsend, Morgan’s brother.
Zikee was found to be in possession of the robbery victim’s iPhone and driver’s license as well as 29 ecstasy pills worth $725 in his “groin area,” police said.
All charges against Zikee Townsend were subsequently dropped. (It’s not the first time he’s walked free after being scooped up in an alleged robbery around Wrigleyville and Boystown.)
