A man who’s on probation for robbing a victim in Rogers Park last autumn is back in custody, accused of mugging a senior citizen in the same neighborhood last month.
Meanwhile, another man has been sentenced to prison for robbing a woman in Old Town this summer while he was on probation for a separate robbery.
Rogers Park arrests
Two men are charged with robbing a 62-year-old woman of her cell phone on the 2600 block of West Devon around 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 17. One of the offenders blocked her path when she tried to chase after the man who took possession of her phone, she said.
Eight days after the mugging, patrol officers spotted 21-year-old Rashad Ponder and 22-year-old Ra Sheed McFadden walking on the 2700 block of West Devon. The cops recognized Ponder and McFadden from surveillance video of the woman’s robbery, they said. And McFadden was allegedly wearing the same clothes as the mugger who blocked the victim’s path.
Prosecutors charged McFadden and Ponder with one count of felony robbery each. Judge Mary Marubio set bail for McFadden at $10,000. And she ordered Ponder held without bail on the robbery charge as well as for allegedly violating the terms of his probation.
According to court records, a judge sentenced Ponder to two-years probation in March for the Oct. 2018 robbery of a man on the 6400 block of North Washtenaw, about a block from where the woman said he robbed her last month.
The 54-year-old man told police that Ponder approached him with another offender on the street and said, “Give me what you have. We have a gun.”
Police recovered the victim’s phone from Ponder’s possession when they arrested him nearby, officers said in a report.
Old Town sentencing
Curtis Edgelston, 20, received three concurrent three-year prison sentences in exchange for pleading guilty to a trio of robberies.
Edgelston was on probation for robbing a woman in 2018 when prosecutors charged him with robbing another woman near Piper’s Alley in June.
Police said a 30-year-old woman was walking westbound on North Avenue when a man walked up from behind and grabbed her phone and purse. Edgelston ran from the scene, but the victim and witnesses chased after him, and cops took him into custody.
In Nov. 2018, Edgelston pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of felony theft after he robbed and threatened a 15-year-old three months earlier. He received a sentence of two years second-chance probation and was ordered to stay in school.
He pleaded guilty in May to violating the terms of the probation, and a judge ordered him to spend five days working on the sheriff’s SWAP labor program.
In addition to that violation, records show that he was charged with domestic battery on Feb. 8 and then skipped bail in the case less than a month later.
With a 50% sentence reduction for anticipated good behavior and time served while awaiting trial, Edgelston will be paroled on Dec. 4, 2020.
