“Electronic Monitoring Appreciation Week” continues at CWB Chicago. Our team has been flooded with so many new stories about people being arrested while on EM lately, we decided to make a week of it. You can see all of our EM Appreciation Week coverage at this link. Here’s the latest:
37 days
Eric Joseph was on his 37th day of EM for a pending felony retail theft case when he walked into Saks Fifth Avenue on the Mag Mile on February 17, prosecutors said. He allegedly walked out with a pair of jeans worth $1,390 and a sweatshirt worth $2,390 without paying. Joseph was convicted of felony retail theft once in 2019, twice in 2016, once in 2014, again in 2010, 2009, and 2008. He was convicted of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon in 2012, narcotics in 2006 and 2003, burglary, and possessing a stolen motor vehicle in 1991.
After hearing that he was accused of retail theft while on EM for retail theft, Judge Maryam Ahmad ruled that Joseph could go home on the charge without posting a monetary bond. But he would need to be on electronic monitoring. Again.
“An achievement”
Bernard Brooks is an 18-time convicted felon. One of those convictions is for escaping electronic monitoring.
He has pending felony cases for narcotics and, again, escaping from electronic monitoring. Last October, a judge put him back onto electronic monitoring to await trial for those two cases, prosecutors said.
Exactly three weeks later, sheriff’s office investigators found Brooks’ ankle monitor lying on some train tracks. He was not attached to it.
Cicero police crossed paths with him this month and took him into custody.
“This defendant is an 18-time convicted felon. Which is an achievement, even at the age of 58,” observed Judge Barbara Dawkins at his subsequent detention hearing.
She noted that the court made arrangements in October for Brooks to stay at a group house so he did not have to remain in custody — a “finite resource,” Dawkins called it.
She then ordered him held in lieu of $200,000 bail.
48 days
When Chicago police stopped Darnell Wilson, 23, for a traffic violation on December 12, he was on probation for identity theft and had two active arrest warrants, including one for identity theft. In his wallet, police allegedly found an ID bearing Wilson’s picture but a different person’s name. In the trunk of his car, they reportedly found a Texas ID with Wilson’s photo and another person’s name.
Prosecutors charged him with two counts of possessing a fraudulent ID card to go along with his pending matters. He went on electronic monitoring on January 22, according to court records.
On March 11, Wilson was still on electronic monitoring when a CPD patrol car’s license plate reader alerted officers that the Jeep Grand Cherokee he was standing next to had been reported stolen, prosecutors said.
The cops stopped. Wilson climbed into the Jeep’s driver’s seat, closed the door, climbed over the passenger, exited the passenger door, and ran, according to the allegations. Police arrested him while the other occupants of the Jeep ran away.
Officers allegedly found a loaded handgun under the Jeep’s driver’s seat. Stolen from Indiana, the gun was equipped with an extended magazine and a switch that would allow the weapon to generate automatic gunfire, prosecutors said.
There was a second gun under the driver’s seat, too, prosecutors continued. It had a drum-style ammunition magazine.
Prosecutors charged him with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Judge David Navarro ordered him held without bail on the already-pending cases and $10,000 bail on the new gun charge.