CHICAGO — Bring on the feds! Two men accused of participating in one of last year’s most memorable crimes are now fighting federal charges in the case. A grand jury returned an indictment against Kenneth “Kenny Mac” Merritt and Damarri “Marri” Conner, charging them with federal counts of using a firearm during the commission of a violent crime and carjacking, according to court records.
On the evening of November 2, 2023, two men entered the back yard of a family’s home in the 9300 block of South Pleasant as a 46-year-old woman and her 12-year-old daughter returned from the girl’s sports practice.
As the woman walked toward the house, two men ran up the driveway and knocked her to the ground. One ripped away her purse and rifled through it, while the other held a gun to the fallen woman. They threatened to shoot her and then pointed a gun at her husband when he walked out the back door, officials said. He was also robbed.
It was all caught on video.
After debating about which car they should take, the men drove away with the family’s Audi, police said. Someone returned to the family’s home days later and stole their other car, possibly with the keys that the robbers took.
In a detention petition filed last year, state prosecutors said Conner racked the slide of a firearm, threatened to shoot the victims, and grabbed one of the victims by the neck during the crime. They said he was caught on video using one of the victims’ credit cards, and clothes worn during the robbery were found in his bedroom. Conner was on bail for a felony gun charge at the time of the crime, according to court records.
Chicago police identified Merritt from surveillance footage as he used the husband’s American Express card to buy something at a BP station, according to his CPD arrest report. He was wearing the same clothes that he wore during the robbery and carjacking, the report said.
State prosecutors said Merritt admitted to taking a bus to get to the robbery scene. Police found CTA surveillance video that supported his claim. He had been on parole since July 2021 after serving half of three concurrent 10-year sentences he received for two robberies and for being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
Those robberies were initially charged as aggravated carjackings, according to court records, but prosecutors allowed Merritt to plead guilty to the lesser charge in a plea deal.
CPD records show the carjackings both occurred on September 17, 2016: one in the 500 block of West Eugenie in Old Town and the other in the 2000 block of North Lincoln in Lincoln Park.
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