Latest from Frank Main
David Berger, a co-founder of Ivy Hall cannabis dispensaries in Chicago and across Illinois, was convicted of “structuring” $253,000 in cash deposits from a Mexican drug organization to skirt bank reporting rules.
Jawad Fakroune, who grew up in Morocco, was convicted of extortion for beating and threatening a restaurant owner over a $1.5 million debt.
Steve Fanady, 61, isn’t in jail for a crime. He’s being held for civil contempt but says he doesn’t have the money to pay up. He says he lives on hard-boiled eggs and peanut butter in the Cook County Jail. And he wants out. The courts have found his jailing “coercive” but legal.
Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns rejected a first-degree murder conviction Thursday for Henry Graham because of longstanding Illinois court rulings that attackers in one-punch deaths aren’t presumed to know their actions could result in a killing.
David Berger, a co-founder and manager of Ivy Hall recreational weed dispensaries, held a cannabis license that was terminated in May, almost half a year after he was convicted of helping a drug trafficker pay for private jet flights with cocaine proceeds.
Derrick Muhammad, a former Harvey cop, is one of several close relatives of Kellogg convicted of bribery — but the ex-mayor was untouched.
Abdulhafedh Abdulhafedh, 25, led the 100K Gang, a crew suspected in armed robberies of BMO bank branches in the Chicago area, the FBI says. The lawyer for a suspected accomplice, Dayvon Walton, says the FBI didn’t give him access to his client before he allegedly admitted to participating in a holdup and an attempted robbery.
People who fail to pay court-ordered support to their children or former spouses can land in jail. Expanding access to lawyers for parents at the start of divorce cases could mean fewer problems in paying, as would a better take on what they can pay, experts say.
Reporter Frank Main, with his son’s amateur detective work, found that more than a century ago, his missionary great-grandfather lived in a summer home in Kuliang, a town that’s become a symbol of cultural ties between the U.S. and China — and is close to the heart of China’s President Xi Jinping.
Rev. Michael Pfleger and former Chicago mayoral candidate Ja’Mal Green say they’ve lobbied Pritzker to free the onetime gang kingpin. Hoover’s clemency petition poses political risks for the governor as he seeks reelection and weighs a run for president.