CHICAGO — A man who spent 20 years in prison for his role in the murder of a Chicago police officer will be in court today, facing new allegations that he teamed up with another convicted murderer to kidnap and carjack a couple in Brighton Park last summer. One of the carjacking victims, both of whom were zip-tied, threw herself from the moving hijacked vehicle to escape her abductors.
Robert Brandt was 20 years old when he pleaded guilty to a murder charge hours before his jury trial was set to begin on September 28, 2001. Prosecutors said Brandt hid the gun that someone used to kill Chicago Police Officer Michael Ceriale three years earlier. Ceriale was murdered while conducting undercover narcotics surveillance at the Robert Taylor Homes.
The 16-year-old who fired the shot that killed Ceriale was sentenced to 60 years and two men received 30-year sentences for their roles in the crime.
Now, Brandt is accused of working with 44-year-old Ronald Wembley to zip-tie, kidnap, and carjack a couple on August 18. Wembley is also a convicted murderer, having received a 45-year sentence for a Calumet Park slaying in 1998.
During a detention hearing for Wembley in September, prosecutors said Wembley and an unnamed accomplice, allegedly Brandt, took a 35-year-old man’s car at gunpoint in the 2500 block of West 45th Place. They battered and robbed the man, took a 35-year-old woman’s purse, restrained both victims with zip ties, and forced the couple into the hijacked vehicle, according to a detention petition filed against Wembley.
The woman eventually escaped by bailing out of the hijacked car while it was in motion, officials stated. She suffered injuries to most of her right side, shoulder, and buttocks.
Investigators connected Wembley to the crime because his phone data and GPS allegedly put him at the scene at the time of the crime. They also determined that video images of one of the carjackers resembled Wembley’s driver’s license photo, officials said.
Brandt is charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm, aggravated kidnapping while armed, and kidnapping while armed with a firearm. Prosecutors will reveal specific allegations against Brandt and detail how police linked him to the crime during his detention hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on Thursday.
Court records show that Brandt has been charged twice with being a felon in possession of a firearm since completing his prison time for Ceriale’s murder: in May 2021 and again in March 2023. Prosecutors in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office dropped both cases within months. In February 2023, Brandt was charged with violating the violent offender registration law. He received a sentence of two years, time served.
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