Free Republic

CHICAGO — Shoplifters in Chicago are more than 100% more likely to be slapped with felony charges under Cook County’s new state’s attorney than they were under Kim Foxx’s administration. Retired justice Eileen O’Neill Burke took office on December 2 and immediately followed through on her campaign promise to adhere to state law by pursuing felonies against people who shoplift merchandise worth more than $300. Foxx ordered prosecutors to withhold felony charges unless the value exceeded $1,000 or the accused shoplifter had ten or more previous convictions. “The felony retail theft statute says that the value of goods has to...

The outgoing top prosecutor in Illinois reportedly failed “compliance” and is no longer authorized to practice law. Former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx famously handled the case of actor Jussie Smollett after he staged an attack against himself. Her term ended on December 1, but she reportedly did not complete mandatory continuing education requirements. A search for the progressive’s name on the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission website shows that Foxx is “unauthorized to practice law as [the] attorney has not demonstrated required MCLE [Minimum Continuing Legal Education] compliance.” ... All continuing education credits that were completed had...

Sean Hill, the incorrigible nuisance arrested 75 times since 2015 and 12 times this year, will not be getting arrested for a while. That’s because a judge finally decided to send him to prison. Many of the 54-year-old’s arrests involved allegations of randomly battery people and grabbing women he did not know, usually downtown. But he’s going to prison for robbing an Old Town liquor store twice this year. On March 9, he allegedly took a bottle of Tito’s vodka from Garfield’s Beverage, 1437 North Wells, and told a store employee that he had a gun. One month later, he...

Jussie Smollett‘s conviction in an alleged hate crime hoax was overturned on Thursday by the Illinois Supreme Court. The “Empire” actor was convicted in December 2021 of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly staging a hate crime against himself and was sentenced the following year to 150 days in county jail. In December 2023, his bid for an appeal was denied and it was ruled that he would have to serve his full sentence. He spent six days in jail while his appeal was pending. In January 2019, Smollett told police he was attacked outside of his Chicago...

More than five years after Jussie Smollett staged a phony hate crime against himself, and nearly three years since his conviction by a Chicago jury, lawyers for the former Empire actor are asking the Illinois supreme court to overturn the guilty verdict. Defense attorney Nenye Uche argued on Tuesday that Smollett’s case should never have gone to trial because the actor had already entered into a binding agreement with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office not to prosecute him in exchange for him voluntarily agreeing to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service, according to a report in the...

Soros-backed Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx preemptively announced that she will not prosecute protesters who are “peaceful” at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). This sudden turn toward leniency runs against what she claimed in April, Wirepoints reported. Despite the attention to “peaceful” protesters, Foxx also announced ahead of time that she will not prosecute anyone arrested for misdemeanors — such as disorderly conduct, public demonstration, unlawful gathering, criminal trespass to state-supported land, and even curfew charges. The policy is not new, though. The prosecutor, who was given a $408,000 donation from a George Soros super PAC in 2016, has...

Prosecutors have charged a suburban man with two felonies after he allegedly threw a Big Gulp on Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx during an argument near her Flossmoor home. William Swetz “had no idea” who Kim Foxx was when he crossed paths with her as he drove in the 800 block of Sterling Avenue on Friday morning, Assistant Public Defender Catherine Stockslager said during his initial appearance this afternoon. Foxx was on her morning walk when Swetz, 34, encountered her while driving his GMC pickup truck around 10:30 a m., officials said. Courthouse veterans who spoke with CWBChicago on...

The US attorney's office is now prosecuting two alleged gang members over the death of a National Guard soldier in 2021 - after the state attorney refused to do so. Chrys Carvajal, 19, was killed in Chicago on July 3, 2021 in a drive-by shooting as he was walking to his car while attending a Fourth of July party with his girlfriend. Three years on from his killing, Gary 'Gotti' Roberson, 40, and Joseph 'Troubles' Matos, 41, are set to stand trial over his brutal slaying.

The fantastic fall of Fani Willis is one of the great comedies of recent American politics. It’s the flagrant corruption of Hunter Biden, mixed with the stupidity of Jussie Smollett, the courtroom farce of the George Zimmerman trial, and the sky-high political stakes of a U.S. presidential election. It’s the joyous, healthy humor of seeing a wicked, ridiculous person be exposed and get exactly what she deserves. Right now, it still isn’t certain whether Judge Scott McAfee will actually kick Fani Willis off her own case, but even if he doesn’t, the damage has substantially been done. The tenuous prosecution...

President Joe Biden has nominated April Perry, a former official with the Cook County State’s Attorney Office, to be the next U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. If approved by the Senate, Perry would replace John Lausch, who retired on March 11. A former Chicago Fraternal of Police Official, Martin Preib, blasted the nomination saying that Perry, Kim Foxx’s Chief Ethics Officer from 2017 to 2019, said nothing publicly when Foxx dropped the charges – in the face of overwhelming police evidence -- against actor Jussie Smollett for faking a hate crime. Perry resigned her position a few...

Carlishia Hood, 35, had been accused of getting her son, 14, to shoot dead Jeremy Brown, 32, on June 18. Charges against the two were ditched after Cooks County State Attorney Kim Foxx announced her office had backtracked on the charges. Brown could be seen yelling at Hood to 'get your food!' as she starts to argue with him. While she continued to yell back at him, he shouted: 'Oh my God, if you say one more thing, I'm going to knock you out.' He then took a big swing and punched her, with other customers in the store looking...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Kim Foxx will not seek reelection in 2024 after serving two terms as Cook County state's attorney. She made the big announcement at the City Club of Chicago Tuesday afternoon, saying "I leave now with my head held high and my heart full." She also spoke one-on-one with ABC7 Chicago in her only sit-down television interview on her decision and legacy in office. Foxx told Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson of her decision on Monday, and called him "the man of the moment," whose election reminds her of her own first win in 2016. Foxx became the first African...

Illinois Cook County prosecutors have dropped state sex-crime charges against singer Robert Sylvester Kelly, known as R. Kelly. The charges that have been dropped are aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse counts involving four accusers, three of them minors. On Monday, County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said that they are being dropped in part because of the prison sentences he is already facing for his federal convictions. Kelly had been charged in federal courts in New York and Chicago after Foxx’s office filed charges in 2019.

The People Who Play By The Rules PAC has released a chilling ad in which a Chicago woman’s scream echoes in her neighborhood as she is attacked in daylight. “On a Sunday afternoon in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood….” the ad’s introduction reads. The video depicts a woman briskly walking down a residential street during a pleasant day when a car comes to an abrupt stop, three men jump out and attack her. In the beating the attackers took the woman to the ground, kicking her as she wails. “How much worse does it have to get?” the ad reads at its...

I attended the White Sox game today. Because of unchecked crime on the Chicago Transit Authority, I decided to skip the Red Line train and to drive to Guaranteed Rate Field. There is a reduced parking rate of $15.00 available on "Fan Friendly Sundays." Unfortunately, criminals are working the intersection of 37th Street and Wentworth Avenue. These scammers are posing as parking attendants in order to rip off unsuspecting fans. The con artists were dressed in yellow vests and ball caps and pretending to be employees while directing traffic and flagging down passing cars. One of these jokers came up...

Veteran Cook County state's attorney James Murphy retired on Friday, July 29, after a career in which he played an important role in some of Cook County's most conspicuous cases. Beginning his service to Cook County under Richard Devine, Murphy continued to work in the office under Devine's successor, Anita Alvarez, and finally under Kim Foxx. In a career spanning two-and-a-half decades, Murphy became one of the most visible prosecutors in the county, playing a leading role in the prosecution of Jussie Smollett and the investigation of the Chicago police shooting death of an armed gang member, Adam Toledo. A...

Once again, allegations raise the question: Who does Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx work for? Calling her conduct “reminiscent” of the Jussie Smollett scandal, a Chicago-area attorney is accusing Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx of illegally denying defendants access to key files in a federal lawsuit. This time, however, the allegations of misconduct do not arise from an offender falsely claiming he was attacked by racist Trump supporters, à la the Jussie Smollett case. Rather, this case surrounds one of the most infamous crimes in the state’s history, the 1982 murders of Chicago Police Officers William Fahey and...

The Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx allegedly slapped her husband during a domestic dispute, according to her spouse. A police officer from the Flossmoor Police Department in Illinois was dispatched to a home on June 4 at around 10:00 p.m. in response to a domestic dispute between Kim Foxx and her husband, Kelley Foxx. Kelley Foxx dialed 911 to report a domestic dispute with his wife, according to the police report, which states that the officer was told that the dispute was physical but there were no injuries “yet.”

Jussie Smollett believes there's one overarching reason he was sent to jail, and it's not because of the hoax ... he says it's because he's Black. Sources with direct knowledge and in constant touch with the "Empire" actor tell TMZ ... Jussie fully expected to get jail time. He told his defense team before sentencing he felt he would be treated more harshly than other defendants convicted of a non-violent crime ... all because of the color of his skin. He thinks it's more evidence of systemic racism in the judicial system. Jussie told his team after sentencing he was...

Kim Foxx, the Cook County prosecutor who nearly let disgraced actor Jussie Smollett walk scot-free, now says his criminal conviction and subsequent sentencing was an example of “mob justice.” In early 2019, the Empire actor claimed he fell victim to a hate crime on a cold winter’s night in Chicago at the hands of two men who derided him with homophobic slurs while yelling “this is MAGA country” as they tied a noose around his neck. Many in the media took Smollett’s story at face value until evidence revealed that he had hired two brothers from Nigeria to stage the...