CHICAGO — A Chicago man has been sentenced to seven years for carjacking a woman while he was supposed to be on house arrest for pending gun and armed robbery charges. He received an additional ten years for those cases.
In 2017, Peter Andrews and another man pulled out handguns and robbed a group of landscapers of jewelry, watches, and cash in Calumet City, according to prosecutors and court records.
That same day, he flagged down a bicyclist in Calumet City, pulled the victim from his bike, put the bicyclist in a chokehold, and went through the victim’s pockets while his accomplice held a gun to the man’s head, prosecutors alleged. They got away with $20.
Warrants were out for his arrest for two years before Chicago police caught up with him in 2019. They said he was carrying a gun on a South Side street. He later posted bond and went home on electronic monitoring to await trial in all three cases.
He was still on electronic monitoring when he allegedly left his home and carjacked a 51-year-old North Carolina woman in the South Shore neighborhood on Halloween 2021.
Prosecutors said the woman was trying to park her Dodge Charger when an SUV pulled up next to her, and two men got out to confront her. One of the men pointed a handgun at the woman, took her keys, and got into the driver’s seat.
The other man, allegedly Andrews, climbed into the Charger’s passenger seat, and the victim got a good look at his face. She warned the men that her car had a theft tracker, but they didn’t seem to mind. They drove away with her vehicle.
Police activated the car’s tracking system and found it parked outside Andrews’ home, prosecutors said. They also learned that Andrews was on electronic monitoring, so they acquired his ankle monitor’s GPS records, which showed he left his home right before the hijacking, pinged within a block of the crime scene, and then returned home.
Now, prosecutors have struck a deal with Andrews in the hijacking case. They allowed him to plead guilty to a reduced charge of possessing a stolen motor vehicle, which allowed him to avoid the substantially longer prison sentence that an armed carjacking conviction would bring. Judge James Obbish handed him the seven-year sentence. Obbish also gave him one year for the 2019 gun case, according to court records.
Andrews agreed to plead guilty to the two Calumet City robberies last year. He received ten years for each of those from Judge Geraldine D’Souza.
After concurrent sentences are merged, then reduced by 50% for good behavior and additional credits he earned in jail and on electronic monitoring, Andrews is expected to be paroled on December 23, 2027.
Prosecutors never charged Andrews with escaping from electronic monitoring to commit the carjacking. Because he was not away from his home for more than 48 hours, he cannot be charged with escape under Illinois’ 2021 criminal justice overhaul known as the SAFE-T Act.