Prosecutors on Saturday charged an 18-year-old man with beating and carjacking a driver in Wicker Park just five days after being charged with illegally driving someone else’s car on the South Side.
The carjacking victim was asleep in his car on the Jewel-Osco parking lot, 1341 North Paulina, when Quitone Nash and two other men pulled him from the vehicle and began beating him around 1:55 a.m. Friday, prosecutors said.
Nash’s two accomplices drove away with the victim’s car, and the victim saw Nash run away on foot, then jump a nearby fence, according to the state.
Police located the stolen car at a gas station near 69th Street and Ashland Avenue in Englewood a short time later. Officers arrested Nash when he allegedly stepped out of the passenger seat.
Prosecutors said he admitted to pulling the victim out of the car, and he identified himself on Jewel-Osco surveillance video of the incident.
Just five days before the carjacking, prosecutors charged Nash with misdemeanor criminal trespass to a vehicle and driving without a license after cops allegedly caught him operating a car he doesn’t own in the Grand Crossing neighborhood. Judge Arthur Willis released him on his own recognizance in that case last Sunday afternoon.
Things did not go quite that well during Nash’s appearance in felony bond court Saturday. Prosecutors charged him with felony vehicular hijacking, and Judge Charles Beach ordered him held in lieu of $200,000 bond. Beach also ordered Nash to go onto electronic monitoring if he posts the mandatory 10% deposit bond. And Beach set bail at $40,000 for Nash’s violation of bail bond in last weekend’s misdemeanor case.
The two people who allegedly helped Nash carjack the man in Wicker Park have not yet been charged, prosecutors said.
