A person with a string of earlier arrests has been sentenced to 4½ years in jail for attacking a passenger on the CTA Crimson Line in Rogers Park final summer season.
Decide Carol Howard handed down the sentence after 26-year-old Martel Mason pleaded responsible to aggravated battery of a transit passenger. Prosecutors agreed to drop the theft cost.
The case dates again to shortly after midnight on July 19, 2024, when a 22-year-old Evanston man was attacked on a prepare close to the Morse Station. 4 individuals surrounded him, beat him, pepper sprayed him, and stole his telephone, bank card, and driver’s license. Police later launched surveillance photographs of the suspects.
An officer acknowledged Mason instantly, having arrested him simply ten days earlier for one more matter, prosecutors stated. Detectives ultimately tracked him down on the Leighton Felony Courthouse, the place he was showing on different pending circumstances.
In truth, mason had three separate circumstances already pending on the time of the theft: a felony retail theft from 2023, a misdemeanor retail theft on the Magnificent Mile from March 2024, and a misdemeanor battery in Rogers Park ten days earlier than the prepare assault. Courtroom data present he has since pleaded responsible to the battery and one of many retail thefts. He acquired time served for these. The third cost was dropped.
Though Mason’s official sentence is 4½ years, underneath Illinois regulation he’ll solely serve half if he stays out of bother in jail. He additionally earned credit score for time spent in jail awaiting trial. His parole date is about for January 19, 2027.
