A man who repeatedly benefited from generous plea deals in gun cases, including a two-year sentence for his third felony gun conviction, was sentenced to 20 years in prison this week after pleading guilty to murder.
Standing before Judge James Obbish on Monday, Isaac Corona, 29, admitted to murdering 21-year-old Justin Gamino in Back of the Yards in May 2022, just four months after being paroled in his third sweetheart plea deal.
Prosecutors said Corona and a man named Antonio Gonzalez were passengers in a stolen SUV as they rode past a school on the 5100 block of South Elizabeth around 3:30 p.m.
Corona allegedly spotted Gamino, the father of a 2-year-old girl who was on track to earn his high school diploma the following month, standing next to a car. Prosecutors said there are no indications Gamino had any kind of weapon when Corona allegedly opened fire on him from the back seat of the SUV.
School staff members tried to save Gamino, who was shot several times, but he died at the scene. Police recovered 14 shell casings.
The SUV sped away and crashed as police closed in. All four occupants fled on foot, but cops caught Corona and two juveniles. Prosecutors said Gonzalez stole another car nearby and ran over an officer, a decision that earned him a 10-year sentence last summer.
Corona’s public defender said during his first court appearance on the murder charge that he was the father of two and a volunteer for an anti-violence peacemaking group.
Pattern of leniency
Corona’s criminal history reveals a pattern of reduced charges and light sentences, prosecutors said.
As a juvenile, he was adjudicated delinquent for illegal gun possession and received three years probation.
On September 3, 2016, Corona allegedly walked up to a victim and fired three shots from a revolver. The bullets missed, and the gun jammed when he tried to fire again. A grand jury indicted him on charges of attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm, and aggravated assault by discharge of a firearm.
But Corona struck a deal with prosecutors: They dropped the attempted murder rap and he pleaded guilty to reckless discharge. Judge Lawrence Flood sentenced him to three years in prison and gave him credit for 547 days he spent in custody, mostly on electronic monitoring, and the state reduced the sentence by another 50% for good behavior.
Less than a year later, on January 13, 2021, Corona ran from police during a traffic stop on the 5300 block of South Maplewood, prosecutors said. Officers found a loaded handgun in one of his jacket pockets and a loaded ammunition magazine in the other pocket, according to prosecutors. He was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm with a prior conviction.
While on bail for that case, police responded to a ShotSpotter alert and 911 calls of shots fired on the 5200 block of South Maplewood. Officers said they found Corona, who was on electronic monitoring, standing in a yard with his hands in his pockets. One of those pockets allegedly contained a loaded ammunition magazine. He was charged with unlawful possession of ammunition and resisting police, both misdemeanors.
Three days later, Corona pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in his pending felon-with-a-firearm case, and Judge Angela Munari-Petrone sentenced him to just two years in prison. That sentence was reduced by 50% under state law, and he received credit for 281 days served, mostly credit earned while on electronic monitoring. Prosecutors dropped the newly filed ammunition and resisting charges two days later.
COVID backlog deal
The two-year deal Corona received for his third felony gun case was part of an effort by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to clear a backlog of cases that built up during the COVID pandemic.
At the time, top leadership of the prosecutor’s office spoke proudly of their ability to reduce the backlog while maintaining justice standards.
“What I told [prosecutors] to do was just to take a look at your cases, and make appropriate offers based upon your evidence and based upon the law, based upon your conversations with your victims,” First Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier told WBEZ. “So I was not telling anyone to, you know, to give away the candy store or make any sweetheart deals, we want to ensure that the work that we’re doing that we’re continuing to do it with integrity, despite the circumstances that we’re under, but we do empower our [assistants] to look at their cases and to use their discretion.”
Corona went home after serving about two months in actual prison for his third gun felony. Within four months, Gamino was dead.
