Schaumburg mom pleads guilty to drug charges, will testify against baby's father
A Schaumburg mom facing drug and armed violence charges pleaded guilty Monday to possession of cannabis with intent to deliver.
Nicole Morris, 23, also agreed to testify against her co-defendant, John Abel Jr., the father of her young child. Abel, 26, is being held at Cook County jail on $1.25 million bond and is charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver and armed violence.
Morris will be sentenced Dec. 23 on the class one felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Probation is also an option.
Information from a confidential informant led to the couple's arrest in November 2015.
From their Schaumburg home, police recovered a 9mm firearm loaded with a 30-round magazine in their bedroom where their then-6-month-old baby slept, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors also said members of the Illinois State Police narcotics task force recovered cocaine and marijuana with a combined street value of more than $69,000. They also recovered a 50-round magazine, $13,000 in cash and an agent used to cut cocaine, prosecutors said.
The cutting agent was found in a kitchen cabinet in a Similac baby formula container that read "do not feed to baby," according to prosecutors.
Abel, who also has a pending aggravated battery and hate crime case from February 2014, was among 19 defendants whose drug charges were dismissed in 2013 in the wake of the scandal involving former Schaumburg undercover police officers John Cichy, Matthew Hudak and Terrance O'Brien.
The trio were charged in DuPage County with criminal drug conspiracy, delivery of a controlled substance, armed violence, theft and official misconduct. Hudak and O'Brien pleaded guilty to multiple charges in 2014. For the most serious crimes they received sentences of 26 and 38 years, respectively. Cichy's trial is pending.
If convicted of all of his current charges, Abel faces a minimum of 30 years in prison. He appears in court today.