A six-time convicted felon with a pending felony drug case was charged earlier this month with throwing a bag containing $6,300 worth of individually-packaged heroin from a Lexus that belongs to the Chicago Police Department’s Chief of Internal Affairs, officials confirmed Wednesday.
Chief Yolanda Talley had loaned her car to her niece and the accused man, Kenneth Miles, is the niece’s boyfriend. Cops released Talley’s niece and allowed her to drive Talley’s car away.
Officials said that Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General is investigating the situation.
Needless to say, there are many notable elements to the story.
Among them: A Cook County judge tried to keep Kenneth Miles locked up over a year ago. But the county justice system put Miles back on the street time and time again even though he was on parole and had a pending felony case that he repeatedly failed to show up for in court.
Shortly before Christmas 2020, Miles stood before Cook County Judge John Lyke for a bail hearing.
Miles was on parole for his fifth felony narcotics conviction since 2010 at the time. He also had a pending felony case for manufacture-delivery of heroin, and he was appearing before Lyke to be charged with another felony distribution of heroin case.
An assistant state’s attorney told Lyke that cops saw Miles standing in a vacant lot yelling, “Blows! Blows!” — street jargon used to solicit drug sales — and engaging in hand-to-hand transactions on the parking lot of New Holy Zion Church.
The prosecutor said he was carrying two baggies of suspected heroin and $161 cash when police arrested him.
His public defender said he lived with his girlfriend at the time. It’s not known if she is the same woman — the niece of the chief of internal affairs — that he is reportedly seeing now.
“He’s doing way too much out there,” Lyke said. “Way too much.”
He ordered Miles held on $50,000 bail and ordered him to go onto electronic monitoring if he posted the 10% deposit necessary to get out of jail. Lyke also ordered Miles held without bail for violating the bond terms in the pending drug case.
Miles went home a couple of days later when prosecutors dropped both cases. The reason for their decision is not clear from court records, but the state’s crime lab, which tests substances seized in narcotics cases, was severely backlogged at the time due to COVID.
About a month later, prosecutors indicted him on the first drug case again, and a judge ordered him to show up in court. He didn’t. He’s been arrested three more times since then and has been released on recognizance bonds and a deposit of $1,500, according to court records.
On February 2, prosecutors told Judge Mary Marubio that cops saw Miles pick up a colorful bag next to a parked car and then get into the passenger seat of a silver Lexus sedan — the car that belonging to CPD’s head of internal affairs.
As officers followed the car, someone threw an object out of the passenger side window, said Assistant State’s Attorney Loukas Kalliantasis. When cops went back and picked up the item, they saw that it was a large Ziploc bag containing 84 smaller pink baggies that each held suspected heroin, he said.
Judge Marubio, noting that Miles is accused of having heroin with a “pretty significant street value,” gave him a recognizance bond, but did put him on electronic monitoring.
She also held him without bail on his ongoing drug case until the judge handling that matter, Maria Kuriakos-Ciesil, could review the situation.
Kuriakos-Ciesil reviewed it the very next day. And she gave Miles a recognizance bond with electronic monitoring. He went home.
Last night, the Sun-Times reported that the officers who arrested Miles “haven’t been allowed to go back on the street.” Perhaps somebody thinks they’re doing way too much out there.
Miles is due back in court on February 25.