CHICAGO — Sunday was not a good day for Anthony Acosta. For one thing, he got shot while driving in Albany Park. Then, Chicago police linked him to four stolen car cases from the past two months and a gun. Now he’s jailed in lieu of $75,000 bail.
Chicago cops have been eyeing Acosta since February 25, when they saw him get behind the wheel of a stolen 2013 Mercedes, prosecutor Sarah Dale-Schmidt said during his bond court appearance on Tuesday afternoon. Officers briefly followed the 24-year-old but terminated their pursuit, she said.
Early last month, Chicago police officers allegedly saw Acosta driving a Lincoln Aviator, one of several such vehicles recently stolen from a Ford dealership, Dale-Schmidt said. He slipped away from the cops again.
And on March 16, he was allegedly seen driving a stolen BMW X3. According to Dale Schmidt, the cops followed him and then lost sight of the vehicle.
That brings us to Acosta’s very bad Sunday.
Officers who responded to calls of shots fired in the 2800 block of West Wilson around 6:15 a.m. found a stolen BMW 750I littered with shell casings on the street. Acosta, who suffered a gunshot wound to his back, was seen on video running from the car with a gun in his hand along with two other people, Dale-Schmidt said.
The cops arrested them all within minutes. Dale-Schmidt said police found a loaded handgun in a gangway where Acosta had been. Inside a nearby barbecue grill, officers found another gun and a loaded extended magazine. According to Dale-Schmidt, there were two more magazines and a box of ammunition in the BMW’s trunk.
Prosecutors charged Acosta with four counts of possessing a stolen motor vehicle, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, and misdemeanor trespassing.
Under Judge Susana Ortiz’s bail order, he must post a $7,500 deposit to go home on electronic monitoring.
Two people who allegedly ran from the BMW with Acosta, 22-year-old Lidia Diaz and 20-year-old Jonathan Zepeda, are each charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass to a vehicle and criminal trespass to land, according to CPD records.
