A Cook County judge Friday ordered the fourth of four teenagers charged in the videotaped beating of a special needs girl to remain at home on electronic monitoring.
The teen, appearing at the Cook Juvenile Justice Center, is charged with felony aggravated battery and misdemeanor battery in the July 22 attack, prosecutors said.
The girl is one of four teenage girls — ranging in age from 13 to 15 — charged in the beating of a 15-year-old girl on the South Side. The attack, recorded on a cell phone video, has gone viral on social media. The other three girls appeared in court Thursday.
On Friday, the fourth girl, whom the Chicago Sun-Times is not naming because she is juvenile, appeared before Judge Terrence Sharkey. Wearing a black hoodie and matching shorts, the 15-year-old girl’s soft voice was swallowed up in the courtroom, and Sharkey repeatedly had to ask her to speak up.
Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Nina Kelly, noting the girl had been threatened on social media, initially asked Sharkey to take the girl into custody for the minor’s “safety.”
After talking to the girl and her mother, Warren Richardson, the girl’s public defender, told the judge that Kelly’s concerns were “completely overblown.”
“The mother is completely capable of protecting her daughter,” Richardson told Sharkey.
The judge ordered home confinement and an ankle bracelet, saying the teen could only leave to go to school, church or for a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment.
The teen is due back in court Aug. 22.
