Posted on 09/21/2026 3:27:09 PM PDT by george76
A veteran Chicago police dispatcher was pinned inside her wrecked car, with nine broken ribs and two fractured vertebrae, when a man climbed into the back seat and stole her driver’s license and credit cards, prosecutors say. The man’s girlfriend then got into the front seat and began patting the injured victim’s waistline, apparently looking for more valuables.
Victoria Mesarina, a dispatcher with the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications for 26 years, was driving home in uniform when another vehicle slammed into the driver’s side of her car in the 3300 block of West Douglas Boulevard around 2:30 p.m. July 3. The other driver ran away, leaving Mesarina trapped in the damaged vehicle. A bystander let her use his phone to call 911, but the wreckage and her injuries kept her from getting out, according to court records.
While Mesarina remained trapped, waiting for first responders, prosecutors said, 25-year-old James Nelson climbed into the back seat, opened her purse and took a black coin purse containing her driver’s license and various debit, credit and gift cards. When Mesarina asked what he was doing, Nelson’s girlfriend, Mahogany Vann, 24, allegedly got into the front passenger seat and began feeling around Mesarina’s waistline as if searching for something.
Nelson and Vann fled as sirens approached. Chicago firefighters extricated Mesarina from the wreckage and took her to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she soon learned that two of her debit cards were being used at a gas station in the 500 block of South California Avenue, according to prosecutors. Police also obtained surveillance video from a BP station at Roosevelt Road and Independence Boulevard showing Nelson getting out of a Jeep registered to Vann and making a purchase shortly after Mesarina’s cards were stolen.
In a helpful coincidence, about 90 minutes after the crash, CPD pulled Vann over for a routine traffic stop. Nelson, who was standing nearby at his mother’s house, was “yelling profanity at the officers” as they conducted the stop, prosecutors said. Vann allegedly became irate and verbally abusive when police asked for her driver’s license, prompting them to order her out of the car. That’s when the cops allegedly found Mesarina’s driver’s license and Chime card on the Jeep’s floorboard, along with several other cards stolen from the victim’s purse. But the officers didn’t yet know the items were stolen, so they let Vann go.
However, the traffic stop was captured on body camera, and the footage later proved crucial. Detectives noticed Vann was wearing the same clothing and had the same distinctive hairstyle described by Mesarina. When detectives circulated photographs of two suspects from the BP station, one of the officers from the stop recognized Vann, prosecutors said. Police later put Nelson in a photo lineup, and Mesarina identified him as the man who had climbed into her back seat. Both Nelson and Vann are charged with unlawful vehicular invasion, burglary and unlawful possession of credit cards.
Judge Luciano Panici Jr. denied prosecutors’ request to detain Nelson while the case proceeds and instead released him on electronic monitoring. Prosecutors did not file a detention petition in Vann’s case.
Last month, Mesarina told NBC Chicago that police found the owner of the car that struck her. He claimed that his vehicle was stolen when it hit her. She is skeptical.
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Some people aren’t fit to walk among the living. The two perps in this case, for example.
True story of a coworker’s friend who was in an accident in which her car’s bumper was hooked and flipped upward on the freeway, ending up with the car upside down and the door distorted and not able to be opened.
The woman was trembling and terrified, still held in her seat belt but trapped.
A man came up to the window and looked inside.
“Listen, I’m really scared. If I open this belt I could fall on my head. Maybe be paralyzed. Please call somebody to help.”
The man reached inside, pulled out her purse, gave a little laugh at her and rushed back to his car and left.
Didn't he see the Law and Order SVU episode where they breathlessly tracked the perp with his leg monitor into a neighborhood near the docks and then a warehouse and a rooming house.
Finally they saw the electronic monitor, placed on a cat's collar. Perp was long gone.
Obviously, it’s an Aldi thing.
I can dream…
That judge should be impeached and arrested.
Bkmk
They found the owner of the car that hit the Hispanic lady (and ran off). He claimed his car was stolen (but did not report it)... So probable an illegal or another "Didn't Do It" person, that didn't have insurance. IOW's they will get away with it because it is Chicago.
Instead, bookmark this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew7sunbym3o
When General Aldo meets his end. Ape has killed ape.
“ Does that include judges?”
Sure does.
L
When I lived in Washington DC in the 1980’s, I worked in the kitchen of an upscale restaurant as a cook for several years while attending college. Most of my kitchen coworkers were black and from the Washington D.C. “ghettos”, and despite working honestly for a paycheck—an admirable thing—they were mostly quite “ghetto” in their attitudes. One day, one of the guys, who I considered to be friendly and a nice guy, told he how if ever a black person came upon a bad car wreck, the very first thing they would do is rob the injured passengers if they were able. Another time around Christmas, he sighed with regret and told me the only way he could buy Christmas presents for his family/kids was to go out and “knock some heads”. He lived in a different world. Forty years have gone by and I sometimes think of the “kitchen crew” and wonder how their lives turned out.
OMG!!! DEmocrats are PURE EVIL AND STUPID TO BOOT!
James Nelson climbed into the back seat, opened her purse and took a black coin purse.
Hey man weed money is where you find it.
In the old days, those two would have been really “popular” in the jail with the staff.
How are the cops “bumbling?”
Some people aren’t fit to walk among the living.
________________________________________________________
Quite right. Who knows what else they have done that that they weren’t caught doing.
Sentencing needs to be based on the entire conviction record of those convicted of new crimes. Punishment should be doubled after each felony conviction. Recidivism would plummet.
Low bail would then not be much of a problem.
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