March 10--Undercover officers nabbed a Rogers Park man Tuesday after catching him using a jamming device on the Red Line because riders talking on their cellphones annoyed him, police said.
During a court appearance Wednesday, Cook County Judge James Brown dubbed Dennis Nicholl the "cellphone police" before setting bail at $10,000.
Nicholl's lawyer, Charles Lauer, identified his client as a certified public accountant and said he was devastated by the felony charge for his "antisocial" behavior.
"He's disturbed by people talking around him," Lauer said after the bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. "He might have been selfish in thinking about himself, but he didn't have any malicious intent."
Chicago police, working with the Federal Communications Commission and the Chicago Transit Authority, had been tipped off months ago about an individual who used a handheld jamming device to block cellphone signals while riding the Red Line, according to Nicholl's arrest report. Authorities were later given a photograph of the suspect holding in his hand what appeared to be a black electronic device with multiple antennas, police said.
On Tuesday, an undercover "mission team," knowing what the suspect looked like from the photo, set up at the Loyola stop on the Red Line at 6 a.m.
It didn't take long for one of the officers to spot Nicholl as he entered the station about 7:15 a.m.
As Nicholl entered the rear car of a southbound train, a plainclothes officer situated himself nearby and immediately made a call on his personal cellphone, according to the arrest report.
The officer saw Nicholl remove a black electronic device with multiple antennas from his pocket and push a button on it, police said. The officer immediately lost his signal and the call dropped, police said.
After the train stopped at the Granville platform, Nicholl was taken into custody by officers. He was holding the jamming device in his hand, police said.
Nicholl admitted he possessed a jamming device and said he used it because "he gets annoyed at people talking on their cell phones while riding on the CTA," the arrest report said. He said he bought it online from overseas, police said.
Nicholl, 63, of the 1000 block of West Loyola Avenue, was charged with unlawful interference with a public utility, a felony.
This is not the first time Nicholl has been charged with jamming cell calls. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in June 2009, according to court records. He was placed under court supervision for a year, and his equipment was confiscated and destroyed.
Nicholl told police following his arrest Tuesday that he once had a jamming device confiscated from him at the border, according to the arrest report.
CTA officials had been investigating complaints about bad cellphone reception when someone made an anonymous 911 call tipping off police, authorities said.
Brian Raida, 30, said he was on his morning Red Line commute to his IT job in 2014 when he saw Nicholl on the train holding a device with multiple antennas on top. Suddenly, his phone lost service.
"Everyone was looking at their phones like -- what the hell?" Raida said Wednesday.
Raida snapped a photo of Nicholl with a bulky device on his lap, and it eventually made its way onto social media.
Worried about the impact on people making 911 or emergency calls, Raida said he provided police with the photo and made a complaint that same day.
He also confronted Nicholl as he got off the train, telling him, "Hey dude, nice jammer," Raida said.
"He kind of looked at me and grinned," Raida said.
The Chicago Tribune's Liam Ford contributed.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
