Two men who faced felony charges after good Samaritans intervened in a robbery aboard a Brown Line train at Southport last year have been sentenced to probation.
Jakolbi Lard, 19, and Meleh Jackson, 20, each pleaded guilty to one count of robbery, and prosecutors agreed to drop aggravated battery charges in exchange for three years probation, records show. Judge William Raines handled the case.
Shortly after 7 p.m. on January 16, 2020, Lard took a 55-year-old man’s phone on the train and then battered a witness who came to the victim’s aid, police said at the time. Then, he allegedly battered the victim when the man tried to get his phone back.
Cops arrived to find the victim and a witness detaining Lard on the platform.
Detectives tracked Jackson down two days later. He was supposed to be on electronic monitoring for a pending domestic violence case at the time of the robbery, records show. He was also on probation for theft in a case that began as a robbery charge.
According to a contemporaneous Chicago Tribune report, lard’s father, Charles, was the oldest of 21 people killed in the E2 nightclub tragedy in 2003.
More “good” news
Lard and Jackson aren’t the only people to wind up in Raines’ court because a good Samaritan got involved.
Just days after they were arrested, four men chased down Trevon Young and pinned him to the ground after they allegedly saw him snatch a woman’s phone at a bus stop outside City Hall.
Cops found the woman’s phone in Young’s possession along with another phone that had been reported stolen by a South Side woman.
He has now pleaded guilty to theft in exchange for 18 months probation from Raines, records show.
