Judge rejects request to expand phone privileges for accused Highland Park shooter

The 23-year-old man charged with fatally shooting seven people and injuring nearly 50 others at Highland Park’s 2022 Independence Day parade won’t get expanded phone privileges while in jail in the weeks before his scheduled trial next month, a judge ruled Thursday.

Lake County Judge Victoria Rossetti denied a defense motion to extend phone privileges to a family friend of suspect Robert E. Crimo III, who faces 21 counts of first-degree murder and dozens of other charges related to the July 4, 2022 attack.

The Highwood man appeared before Rossetti Thursday for the first time since her ruling allowing jurors to hear incriminating statements he made to police hours after the mass shooting.

Rejecting arguments that his constitutional rights had been violated during police questioning, Rossetti said jurors will be allowed to watch the suspect’s videotaped interview with investigators.

During that same hearing, Rossetti reinstated the defendant’s phone privileges with family members.

Highland Park residents Katherine Goldstein, 64; Stephen Straus, 88; Jacquelyn “Jacki” Sundheim, 63; and Kevin McCarthy, 37, and his wife Irina McCarthy, 35 were killed during the attack, which also claimed the lives of Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico, and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, of Waukegan.

Authorities say the defendant perched atop a downtown Highland Park building and fired dozens of shots from a military-style rifle into the crowd gathered for the parade.

He has pleaded not guilty and remains incarcerated in the Lake County jail. If convicted of two or more murders, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Rossetti set a case management hearing for Feb. 6 which she indicated will include a discussion of questionnaires for prospective jurors. The defendant’s trial is scheduled to begin late next month.