A 20-year-old man is the newest to be charged in a harrowing Crimson Line kidnapping and theft that prosecutors say turned an strange prepare experience for a DePaul College pupil right into a crosstown nightmare of dying threats and extortion.
Keyonte Love was charged this week with aggravated kidnapping for ransom and aggravated theft, accused of teaming up with 18-year-old Ricky Willis to abduct the 18-year-old DePaul freshman on a southbound Crimson Line prepare final month.
Prosecutors mentioned the assault started round 2 a.m. on September 6, when Love and Willis boarded the prepare on the Argyle cease. Minutes later, the DePaul pupil stepped aboard at Fullerton, adjoining to the college’s Lincoln Park campus. Inside moments, the lads allegedly cornered him, threatened to kill him, and demanded money.
Love and Willis seized the scholar’s telephone and tried to switch cash to themselves, however the transaction failed as a result of they tried to switch a lot cash, the financial institution suspected fraud, prosecutors mentioned. Undeterred, they allegedly started contacting the sufferer’s household and pals to demand ransom funds.
Utilizing the sufferer’s telephone, Love and Willis first referred to as the person’s sister and warned her she would “by no means see him once more” until she despatched cash, prosecutors mentioned. Terrified, she transferred $700 by Zelle to Willis’ telephone quantity, in keeping with the allegations. The pair then contacted the sufferer’s roommate, who despatched one other $100 through Money App, allegedly to an account named “Ricky Willis.”
After they referred to as the sufferer’s mom, prosecutors mentioned, the plan faltered as a result of she spoke little English and didn’t know how you can use digital cost apps.
Because the prepare neared 63rd Avenue, Love and Willis allegedly warned the sufferer he would “find yourself useless in a ditch” if he tried to run. They compelled him off the prepare, marched him into an alley, and took pictures of his identification paperwork, prosecutors mentioned. They allegedly gave him a telephone quantity and ordered him to make weekly digital funds or be killed.
“I’ll kill you,” Willis allegedly advised him. “That is life or dying. I’ve a change.” The time period “change” refers to an unlawful machine that turns a handgun into an automated machine gun.
The coed by no means despatched one other cost, however he obtained calls from the abductors for a number of days. Chicago police launched surveillance pictures of the assailants inside days, prompting a housing employee to acknowledge each Willis and Love as residents of a property the place the tipster labored.
When questioned by detectives, Willis admitted to being the particular person within the surveillance picture and advised police he “tousled,” prosecutors mentioned. He was charged earlier this month and stays detained by order of Choose John Hock.
Love not too long ago surrendered to police and appeared earlier than Choose Luciano Panici, who ordered him detained pending trial.
