An eight-time convicted felon who has repeatedly escaped from electronic monitoring — and even escaped from state corrections agents while handcuffed — has been ordered to go onto electronic monitoring after he allegedly threatened a security guard with a handgun at a Near North Side grocery store.
“He appears to be some sort of a flight risk based upon the [previous] escape charges,” Judge Charles Beach said while setting bail for Khalil Marbley after prosecutors laid out their latest allegations against him in bond court.
Beach may win the 2021 understatement of the year award. Marbley has escaped so often, we wrote a story about him back in 2018.
Police responded to the Jewel-Osco store at Clark and Division around 9:15 a.m. on August 6 after a uniformed security guard said someone threatened him with a gun.
The guard told police he ordered a man to leave the store’s property after seeing him make a hand-to-hand drug transaction in the doorway, prosecutors said. The man walked to his car, then returned and lifted his shirt to expose a handgun in his waistband.
“I’ll do what I want,” the man told the guard. “I’ll kill you.” The man then returned to his car. Police arrived in time to see the man driving out of the store’s garage. Prosecutors say the man is Khalil Marbley.
Marbley gave police permission to search his car, prosecutors said. Officers allegedly found a gun hidden under the hood between the car’s battery and motor.
Prosecutors charged Marbley with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and aggravated assault of a peace officer.
“It’s one thing to possess a weapon,” Beach told Marbley. “It’s another thing to threaten an individual with that weapon.”
After hearing about Marbley’s criminal record — convictions for escape in 2018 and 2014, firearm possession in 2018, and more — Beach ordered him to pay a $7,500 deposit to get out of jail. And, as we’ve mentioned, Beach said he’ll have to go onto electronic monitoring.
Marbley’s first escape conviction came in 2014 after he stopped showing up for court while on electronic monitoring for manufacture-delivery of cocaine.
Two years later, Marbley was handcuffed when he ran away from an Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) agent who was trying to place him into a prison vehicle.
Shortly after that, cops, sheriffs, and parole agents went to his home. Marbley saw them, made eye contact, and ran. He was found hiding under a pile of clothing on a porch.
Prosecutors charged him with escape and theft of the handcuffs he was wearing when he escaped from IDOC custody. He eventually received a two-year sentence.
Then, in 2018, police allegedly found crack cocaine, baggies, a scale, and a loaded handgun in Marlbey’s car. Prosecutors charged him with Class X armed habitual criminal; felony possession of a weapon while on parole; felony possession of cocaine; two felony counts of possessing drug paraphernalia; and parole violation. He eventually posted $5,000 and went home on electronic monitoring while the new case went through court.
But his roommate didn’t like having an accused felon as a tenant, and sheriff’s deputies went to Marbley’s apartment to move him to a new location in June 2018.
Marbley jumped off his apartment’s rear balcony and ran away, the sheriff’s office said.
Sheriff’s deputies went back to the apartment two weeks later. And, once again, Marbley jumped off his apartment’s rear balcony and ran away. Deputies were waiting nearby to catch him the second time, though.
We’ll keep an eye on Marbley’s case and let you know how if (When?) he escapes again.
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