A man who’s awaiting trial for robbery is charged with carjacking a motorist in Lincoln Park just two months after authorities nixed his no-bail status and released him from Cook County Jail to counter the spread of COVID-19.
Police arrested 21-year-old Joseph Perry at 10:05 a.m. Thursday for trespassing on the 5500 block of North Kenmore in Edgewater. While he was in custody, members of CPD’s carjacking task force recognized him as one of the offenders who carjacked a 27-year-old man in the 900 block of West Armitage on May 30, police said.
During Perry’s bond hearing this week, prosecutors said the carjacking victim was sitting in his car with the engine running when three strangers pulled him from the car, took his valuables, and drove away. Some of the victim’s credit cards were used at a gas station near Aurora about an hour after the crime. Investigators subsequently gathered surveillance images of the three men who used the victim’s cards from the business.
When police confronted Perry about the carjacking on Thursday, he allegedly admitted that he knew his friends were going to steal the car. He said he got into the vehicle, but he denied taking it, prosecutors said. He also allegedly identified himself as one of the men seen in the service station surveillance images. The other men have not been arrested.
Prosecutors charged Perry with vehicular hijacking and criminal trespassing. His bail was set at $50,000, but the judge also ordered Perry held without bail for violating the terms of his pending robbery case.
In the pending case, Perry was arrested on May 8, 2019, for allegedly robbing a convenience store and battering its clerk on the 5700 block of North Broadway. A judge ordered him held without bail in that case.
Perry continued to be held without bail until March, according to Cook County Sheriff’s Office records that CWBChicago obtained through an open records request.
But, on March 27, officials asked a judge to reduce his bail as part of their efforts to clear people out of the jail as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread. A judge granted the request. Perry posted $1,000 to get out on March 27, according to prosecutors.
Perry previously received a highly favorable outcome when a man accused him of robbery on the Far North Side in May 2018. In that case, a 54-year-old man reported that Perry was in a group of offenders that mugged him on the 2000 block of West Devon.
With bodyworn police cameras rolling, Perry allegedly told cops, “I did not take the phone, but I was there…Isaiah took it and gave it to me afterward.” Perry had the victim’s phone, police said.
Less than a month later, Judge Marvin Luckman accepted a guilty plea from Perry in exchange for a sentence of 18-months court supervision and six days of community service, according to court records.