A Northwest Aspect man who shot his neighbor twice in lower than a 12 months has been sentenced to a decade in jail. John Kastanes, 60, pleaded responsible to aggravated battery by discharging a firearm in reference to the second capturing.
Kastanes’ uncommon case started round 3 p.m. on October 10, 2023, when Chicago police responded to calls of a person shot within the 3900 block of North Tripp. Officers discovered a 69-year-old man affected by gunshot wounds to his abdomen and arm.
In keeping with an arrest report, Kastanes made an “excited utterance” to police: “It was me. I did it, and I shot him.”
Regardless of the assertion, police launched Kastanes, who held a license to hold firearms, pending additional investigation. Prosecutors charged him with aggravated battery by discharging a firearm every week later, however the case was dropped in December 2023.
Six months later, the story repeated itself.
Prosecutors stated the identical sufferer obtained into an argument with Kastanes within the 3800 block of North Keeler. Kastanes pulled a gun and opened hearth, putting the person in the appropriate arm. The sufferer drove himself to a close-by rapid care clinic earlier than being transferred to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Heart.
Neighbors referred to as 911, and Kastanes flagged down a passing squad automobile. Officers arrested him on the spot and prosecutors didn’t drop the case this time round.
Choose Ursula Waloski oversaw the case and handed down the sentence. State legislation requires him to serve no less than 85 % of the time, giving him an anticipated launch date in December 2032.
The capturing sufferer has a colourful historical past. Within the Eighties, he was convicted in a significant federal case involving an arson and extortion ring.
In a single occasion, he allegedly had the proprietor of an auto physique store within the neighborhood now referred to as Boystown arrested on false costs. Whereas the proprietor was in police custody, he assumed management of the physique store as a part of the scheme. When the proprietor returned to the enterprise after being launched from custody, the person met him with a firearm, threatening to shoot him and kill his household if he ever returned, based on federal court docket information.
The physique store proprietor misplaced his enterprise, and an arsonist later set his automobile on hearth, court docket paperwork say.
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