Pierre Stokes, the father of 9-year-old murder victim Tyshawn Lee, was convicted of gun charges Wednesday — less than a week after two men were found guilty for his son’s fatal shooting.
Following a bench trial that took just two days, spaced six weeks apart, Cook County Judge Kenneth Wadas found Stokes guilty of gun possession and aggravated battery charges stemming from a 2014 argument in which witnesses said Stokes flashed a gun at a woman. The woman called police, who chased Stokes into an apartment, where they located a .45-caliber pistol in a bag in a bedroom.
At the time, Stokes was not allowed to carry a weapon because of his previous robbery conviction.
A few months later in the fall 2015, as a gang war raged between Stokes’ alleged peers in the Killa Ward faction of the Gangster Disciples and Terrordome set of the Black P-Stones in Auburn Gresham, Tyshawn was killed.
Dwright Boone-Doty shot the fourth-grader to avenge the murder of his cohort Corey Morgan’s brother and shooting of Morgan’s mother. Boone-Doty and Morgan were found guilty of Tyshawn’s murder by two separate juries last week.
During Stokes’ bench trial, Assistant Public Defender Celeste Addyman, argued that Stokes’ fingerprints were not found on the gun, and questioned whether police could have identified the weapon from a few dozen feet away as they gave chase.
Wearing a green jail jumpsuit, Stokes showed no reaction as Wadas announced his verdicts. The 29-year-old rose quickly from his seat and strode out of the courtroom, trailed by a courtroom sheriff’s deputy.
Stokes is awaiting trial on more serious charges of attempted murder from a 2017 shooting prosecutors said was in retaliation for his son’s killing. Stokes allegedly opened fire on Morgan’s girlfriend and her two nephews at a Gresham gas station, just hours after prosecutors announced murder charges against Boone-Doty.
Stokes fired shots that grazed the girlfriend’s head and left her nephews, both in their 30s, with minor injuries.
