CHICAGO — A man has been given an 8-year prison sentence for carjacking a woman in River North. Cedrick Johnson, 19, also pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm in an Uber while on electronic monitoring while the hijacking case was pending.
On December 23, 2023, a 55-year-old woman was outside her car in the first block of West Hubbard when a man jumped behind the wheel and drove away, knocking her to the ground and causing a head injury, according to a Chicago police report. Less than an hour later, cops found the woman’s BMW X1 crashed near the 6300 block of South Normal.
Two witnesses told cops they saw a man run from the BMW’s driver’s seat holding a firearm. Officers followed the driver’s route and arrested Johnson on the rear porch of a boarded-up, abandoned home. The cops also found a loaded handgun with an extended ammunition magazine under the porch steps, prosecutors said.
What’s more, CPD found a video showing Johnson standing across the street from the carjacking scene about two minutes before the BMW was taken, officials said.
Citing the violent nature of the carjacking, the allegations that police found a gun near Johnson, and the fact that Johnson was adjudicated delinquent for robbery as a juvenile, prosecutors asked Judge William Fahy to keep Johnson in custody. Fahy sent him home on an ankle monitor instead.
Less than six months later, on June 6, CPD officers stopped an Uber driver who was operating without a front plate and had a malfunctioning brake light. Johnson was the driver’s backseat passenger.
Police said they found a loaded handgun with an extended magazine under the rear of the driver’s seat, close to where Johnson’s feet had been. The seat design made it impossible for the gun to slide from the front of the seat to the back, leading the cops to conclude that Johnson had possession of the weapon, a CPD report said.
Records show Johnson has pleaded guilty to vehicular hijacking and unlawful possession of a weapon before Judge Alfredo Maldonado. The judge gave him eight years for the carjacking and a concurrent one-year sentence for the gun charge.
After receiving credit for time spent in jail and on an ankle monitor, plus the state’s 50% sentence reduction for good behavior, Johnson is expected to be released on December 17, 2027.
