CHICAGO — A federal judge has sentenced a man to 14½ years in prison for a violent 2018 crime spree in the Gold Coast during which he shot two people, stole three cars, and tried to steal two more.
Earrious Moore, 30, pleaded guilty on May 29 to carjacking, attempted carjacking, and firearm charges and received his sentence last week from U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo.
The two-hour spree began around 4 p.m. on April 26, 2018, when Moore shot his own brother in the arm during a domestic altercation and then forced four people out of a Jeep at gunpoint in the 5200 block of West Jackson.
“Get the f*** out of the car and give me everything you got and drop your cell phones,” he allegedly ordered. The group complied.
Almost an hour later, Moore approached a victim sitting in a Jaguar in the 1100 block of North Milwaukee.
“Get the f*** out of the car,” he allegedly screamed. “I’m taking your car. Leave your phone.”
The victim complied.
Moore crashed the Jaguar a short time later and abandoned it in the 800 block of North Halsted.
Almost immediately, Moore carjacked a plainclothes Chicago police officer near Jesse White Park in the 600 block of West Chicago Avenue. He abandoned the cop’s vehicle behind Gibson’s Steakhouse in the 1000 block of North State.
Moments later, he shot a driver near Rush and Oak during another attempted carjacking, officials said. Eventually, he pulled a driver from a Jeep in front of Hugo’s Frog Bar, 1024 North Rush, and sped away.
Moore soon jumped out of the Jeep in the 1400 block of North Inner Lake Shore Drive and tried to carjack an 84-year-old man who was waiting for a light to change, officials said. The man saw Moore coming toward him with a gun and, fearing for his life, he ducked, closed his eyes, stepped on the accelerator, and tried to speed away, according to federal officials. Moore fired a shot, striking the man in the back left shoulder.
Cops eventually found Moore inside a nearby condo building holding a firearm with an extended ammunition magazine, prosecutors said.
Moore’s defense attorney argued for a sentence of nine years, saying Moore has had “a life shaped by fractured family relationships, socioeconomic challenges, and difficult living conditions.”
The attorney noted that Moore has already been in custody for more than six years, including the entirety of the pandemic. During those days, the lawyer wrote, Moore had to “constantly worry about COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths, and the associated fear of contracting it, if not losing his life to it. In sum, those conditions—for that extended couple year period of time—were truly ‘extraordinarily harsh.'”
The government recommended a 12½-year sentence.
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