It seems Cortez Mukes’ mom has had enough of Cortez Mukes.
According to prosecutors, Mukes’ mother called police on Friday to identify him as one of the robbers shown in a 10-week-old bulletin about a mugging on the Brown Line. Mukes was arrested the next day after his mother called police again because he kicked in her back door, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Steven Haamid.
But there is some good news for Mukes. On Monday, prosecutors forgot to inform his bond court judge about the gun case he is facing—and it’s a doozy. They did, however, remember the three juvenile robbery cases he is still fighting.
Back on May 19, Chicago police released surveillance images of three men accused of robbing a 63-year-old man on a Brown Line train at Washington-Wells earlier that day.
The man was sitting on the train when three men entered his car, and one of them held him by the neck while the other two went through his pockets and took his wallet, Haamid said. While the victim could not identify Mukes, the CTA surveillance images of him wearing a distinctive “KING” sweatshirt were more than enough for his mother.
She called police Friday and met with detectives the next day, Haamid said. Later Saturday, she called police after Mukes returned home and kicked her back door, damaging the door frame, according to Haamid.
Mukes told investigators that he participated in the robbery due to “peer pressure,” Haamid said.
Prosecutors charged him with robbery of a person over the age of 60 and misdemeanor criminal damage. The misdemeanor is for allegedly damaging his mom’s door.
Haamid told Judge Maryam Ahmad that Mukes has three robbery charges pending in juvenile court. But he did not tell her about a misdemeanor weapons charge filed against Mukes in April.
On April 17, one month after Mukes’ 18th birthday, Chicago police responded to a call of a person with a gun and saw him standing in the back yard of a home with a revolver in his hand, prosecutors said during a bail hearing the next day.
Cops saw him aim the gun at an occupied home and pull the trigger four or five times, making a clicking sound but not firing, according to the allegations. The officers ordered him to drop the gun, but he instead ran into the house, according to prosecutors.
He surrendered after a SWAT team spent an hour at the scene. The police never found the gun they allegedly saw him holding.
“Why wasn’t a weapon recovered?” Judge Barbara Dawkins asked during the April bail hearing. “[Because] the defendant was in the building for an hour while the SWAT team and the police tried to get him out of the building.”
Dawkins pointed out that Mukes was on electronic monitoring at the time of the incident, according to his arrest report.
Prosecutors charged Mukes with misdemeanor unlawful use of a weapon and misdemeanor reckless conduct after the SWAT incident. Dawkins ordered him to pay a $2,000 bail deposit to go home on electronic monitoring again.
According to court records, he stayed in jail until prosecutors dropped the case on May 9—nine days before the Brown Line robbery. The state reinstated the charges on June 8, court records show, but there is no reason given for the earlier decision to drop the charges.
On Monday, Judge Ahmad ordered Mukes to pay a $20,000 bail deposit to get out of jail on electronic monitoring for the Brown Line robbery charge.