It was worth a try.
A Chicago man who claimed that surveillance video showed a different man wearing his clothing to rob a woman has, well, finally admitted that it was him.
Craig Williams, 19, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery on January 13 in exchange for a six-year sentence from Judge James Obbish, according to court records.
On September 30, 2021, a car pulled up next to the woman as she settled into her car about a mile east of Midway Airport, according to surveillance video. As the woman tried to close her car door, the men forced it open and demanded her money and her Calvin Klein backpack. She handed over the bag.
One of the men ordered her to give them her phone, too, as the other, wearing a blue hoodie with white lettering, held an object that she believed to be a gun near his stomach, prosecutors said. She complied, and the men fled in a blue car.
Almost immediately after the robbery, before the woman’s 911 call was even dispatched to the police, officers stopped a blue car at a gas station near the woman’s home because it had no rear plates. Williams, allegedly wearing a blue hoodie with white lettering, was detained.
Cops took a closer look at the blue car and recovered a Calvin Klein bag, a brown and pink wallet, and the robbery victim’s ID, prosecutors said.
Williams allegedly identified himself as the person wearing a blue hoodie with white lettering when investigators showed him a surveillance image from the gas station.
However, when officers showed him a surveillance image of a man wearing a blue hoodie with white lettering at the robbery scene, Williams allegedly responded, “Somebody else must be wearing my clothes.”
Prosecutors dropped vehicular invasion and three other felony charges in their plea deal with Williams. His sentence will be cut in half for good behavior, and he received 470 days of credit earned while awaiting trial. He is scheduled to be paroled on September 13, 2024, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
A few months before the robbery, Williams received a 30-day juvenile sentence for a carjacking case.
Facts first. 100% reader-funded. Click here to support CWBChicago today.