Prosecutors have charged a suburban man with punching a 15-year-old boy during a carjacking while an accomplice pulled the teen’s mother room the family car outside a restaurant near Goose Island on Monday evening.
The teen drove his mother to the restaurant on the 800 block of West Chicago and stepped inside to pick up their food order around 6:44 p.m. While he was inside, an unidentified woman dragged his 49-year-old mother from their 2011 Honda Pilot, stomped on her foot, and claimed to have a gun, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, 34-year-old Douglas Cluchey, who lives in an unidentified suburb, allegedly jumped into the driver’s seat.
When the boy rushed outside to investigate the commotion, Cluchey punched him in the face, according to prosecutors. Cluchey and the co-offender allegedly drove away with the victims’ car.
Police located the SUV on a parking lot in suburban Hillside by tracking a GPS device. The car was “filled with drugs and used needles,” and Cluchey was in the driver’s seat, a prosecutor told Judge Maryam Ahmad during a bond hearing Wednesday.
A surveillance camera recorded the carjacking, and Cluchey’s distinctive tattoos are visible in the footage, prosecutors said. But neither the boy nor his mother could identify Cluchey as the carjacker.
Dispatch records indicate the victims initially described the carjackers as a White male in his mid-40’s who wore a black sweater and White female in her mid-30’s who wore blue jeans.
Doctors at St. Mary’s Hospital treated the boy for a concussion and the mother for an injured ankle and contusions on her body.
Cluchey is charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking with a victim under the age of 16 present and vehicular hijacking. He has been convicted of four felonies since 2010: two burglaries, mob action, and theft, prosecutors said.
Judge Ahmad denied the state’s request to hold Cluchey without bail. Instead, she ordered him held in lieu of $100,000. He must post 10% of that amount to get out of jail on electronic monitoring.
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