Man accused in Facebook video torture faces new charge
One of the men accused of beating and torturing a mentally disabled man last year in an attack broadcast on Facebook is facing a new battery charge following a recent jailhouse fight.
The new misdemeanor battery charge against 19-year-old Jordan Hill, formerly of Carpentersville, was announced during a status hearing on the original charges Wednesday.
Officials from the Cook County sheriff's office said Hill and two other inmates attacked another inmate inside the jail on Dec. 8. The victim had minor injuries. Hill wasn't officially charged until Sunday, according to court records.
Hill is one of four people arrested following an investigation into the beating broadcast on Facebook.
One of the attackers, 19-year-old Brittany Covington of Chicago, pleaded guilty to a hate crime last month and was sentenced to four years probation. Judge William Hooks said Covington also agreed to testify against the other attackers if necessary, including Hill, Covington's 25-year-old sister Tanishia Covington and another man, Tesfaye Cooper, 19, of Chicago.
All four defendants are black and the victim is white. They face hate crime charges because of what they said about their victim's race in the video streamed live on the social media site, as well as his mental disability, prosecutors said.
In the video, the four are seen punching the victim, forcing him to drink toilet water and cutting his hair and clothes.
The victim, a now-19-year-old Crystal Lake man who relatives said suffers from schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder, was a friend of Hill's. They met up at a Streamwood McDonald's on New Year's Eve 2016, were joined by Cooper and spent several days together in Chicago and suburbs, using a van stolen from Streamwood, according to investigators. They ended up at the Covington sisters' apartment on the city's West Side Jan. 3, when the attack was streamed live, authorities said.
The four were arrested later that day after police found the victim wandering disoriented near the apartment.