 |
| Phillip Brown beat and robbed a gay man just hours before the 2015 Pride Parade kicked off across town. |
A Garfield Park man has been sentenced to 4-years in prison for attacking and robbing a man in an anti-gay hate crime in Lincoln Park more than two years ago.
Just before 4 a.m. on June 28, 2015, Phillip Brown mumbled gay slurs as he approached an Uptown man who was hailing a cab in the 2300 block of North Ashland, police said. Brown then unleashed a series of punches to the man’s face while telling the victim to “get your gay ass out of here.” He then took the man’s iPhone and jumped over a fence, according to court records.
Police were able to identify Brown through an investigation that led to his arrest when he showed up for an unrelated court date in Skokie more than a year later.
Brown, 21, agreed to plead guilty to robbery and hate crime charges. In exchange, the state dropped a felony aggravated battery count. Cook County Judge Alfredo Maldonado sentenced Brown to four-years for the robbery to be served concurrently with three-years for the hate crime charge.
Brown is scheduled to be paroled on July 12, 2019.
Eight hours after the hate crime, Chicago’s 2015 Gay Pride Parade kicked off. Prosecutors did not draw any connection between the events.
