A man who recently pleaded guilty to committing seven robberies across Lakeview and Lincoln Park during the summer of 2017 spent virtually no time in jail and he won’t spend a single day in prison because his sentence is completely offset by the time he spent on electronic home monitoring.
Bryce McGill, now 22, raised eyebrows when his defense attorney told a bond court judge in 2017 that he was a standout basketball player at Lincoln Park High School who was about to begin classes at the University of North Carolina on a full-ride scholarship.
“Young man,” bond court Judge Peggy Chiampas said, “that was gold in your hands.”
A university spokesperson quickly slapped down the scholarship chatter, saying the school had “no record of an applicant or enrollee by the name of Bryce McGill at UNC-Chapel Hill.”
McGill’s family posted $15,000 to get him out of jail on electronic monitoring after Chiampas’ hearing. And he stayed on electronic monitoring until a few days ago when he pleaded guilty to five robberies and two aggravated robberies.
Judge Catherine Haberkorn sentenced him to seven concurrent 7-year prison terms. The state reduced his sentence by 50% for good behavior, and the balance of his prison term was offset by electronic monitoring.
Last Wednesday, McGill took a ride to the Stateville Correctional Center for processing, and he went home the same day, records show. He will be on parole until next September.
A series of robberies
When police arrested McGill outside Wrigley Field in July 2017, he was allegedly carrying two backpacks that contained a trove of property that was taken from at least seven different robbery victims: three sets of keys, four cell phones, a MacBook, three Ventra cards, a watch, two credit cards, and more.
The property was taken by two men who robbed and sometimes beat victims in a string of attacks across southeast Lakeview and nearby Lincoln Park.
In one case, a man was kicked in the head, punched, and robbed by two offenders on the 2400 block of North Orchard late on July 5, 2017. The offenders took the man’s iPhone and a backpack that contained a Macbook before they ran southbound on Orchard, police said at the time. McGill was carrying the Macbook when cops arrested him, according to a CPD report.
About two hours later, two offenders beat up and robbed a victim of a backpack, wallet, and phone outside the Briar Street Theater on the 700 block of West Briar. Cops would later find his Ventra card in one of the backpacks McGill was carrying.
On July 9, 2017, the robbers struck again when they beat up a woman and robbed her on the 500 block of West Briar.
One of the iPhones in McGill’s backpacks belonged to a woman who was punched in the face and robbed on the 600 block of West Oakdale on July 13, 2017.
The accomplice
Not long after McGill was arrested, cops caught up with his accomplice, 22-year-old Christopher Taylor.
Taylor eventually pleaded guilty to eleven robberies. Haberkorn sentenced him to 11 concurrent 7-year prison sentences, which works out to about 8 months for each mugging. (Four months each with the state’s good behavior discount.)
According to Illinois Department of Corrections records, he was paroled in September 2020 after spending one year and six days in the Western Illinois Correctional Center.
You can support CWBChicago’s start-to-finish tracking of important court cases by becoming a subscriber today!