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Maday defense focuses on health issues

Robert Maday’s trial on charges of escape, armed bank robbery, being a felon in possession of a firearm and using a firearm to commit a violent crime continued Monday at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Building.

The federal charges stem from a series of incidents Sept. 17-18, 2009, during which authorities say Maday, 42, overpowered two Cook County state’s attorney investigators, carjacked a woman in Hoffman Estates and robbed a Bloomingdale bank before crashing the stolen car in West Chicago, where police took him into custody.

Before the defense could begin its case, federal Judge Ruben Castillo asked jurors about their knowledge of a more recent escape, that of Kenneth Conley, who was recaptured Friday, several weeks after he and cellmate Joseph Banks escaped from Chicago’s Metropolitan Correction Center. Banks was recaptured several days after the Dec. 18 breakout.

When testimony in Maday’s trial resumed, defense attorney Anthony Sassan called to the witness stand a Central DuPage Hospital emergency room physician who treated Maday with two low doses of morphine after the crash that led to his arrest. Also testifying for the defense was MCC physician Bonnie Nowakowski, who said she administered a shot of the anti-inflammatory drug Toradol and prescribed him acetaminophen after Maday complained of back pain several days after the crash.

Nowakowski testified that Maday was “a little restless, slumped over, disheveled.”

MCC corrections officer Michael Kringle testified that Maday walked “hunched over” and “seemed uncomfortable” in his cell.

Under cross examination from prosecutor Derek Owens, Nowakowski acknowledged that Maday was able to walk unassisted and exhibited no psychosis. Under cross examination from prosecutor Andrianna Kastanek, Kringle said Maday was alert and conscious.

At the time of his escape, Maday was en route from the Kankakee County jail to the Rolling Meadows courthouse where he was to be sentenced to 13 years in exchange for his guilty plea to a series of 2008 robberies in Buffalo Grove, Huntley and Lake Zurich. He was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in exchange for his guilty plea to those charges, plus another 30 years in exchange for pleading guilty to carjacking and attempted armed robbery he committed after his escape.

Testimony in Maday’s federal trial continues at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Dirksen Federal Building, with closing arguments to follow.

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Robert Maday
COURTESY OF ABC 7Robert Maday is taken to an ambulance after crashing his car in West Chicago in September 2009, following a two-day manhunt in the Northwest suburbs.
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