COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A man who escorts elderly and disabled travelers at O'Hare International Airport is accused of deliberately running over two men at the intersection of Orleans and Division streets after spending Friday night at a bar, authorities say.
Jessie Delgado, 24, was at the same bar as the two victims before a violent encounter at a stoplight in the River North neighborhood ended with the injured pair being taken to a hospital, prosecutors said.
After leaving the bar, the two victims — one a 22-year-old man from Logan Square and the other a 23-year-old man from West Garfield Park — were in a car waiting for the light to change at the intersection. Delgado pulled up in a 2010 Chevrolet, prosecutors said.
All three got out of their respective vehicles, but Delgado suddenly jumped back into his car, hit the gas and drove straight for the two men who were standing in the street, prosecutors said.
Delgado hit both men before crashing his car into the victims' car, then put his car in reverse and ran over them again, prosecutors said. He drove over one man's chest and the other's legs before fleeing, prosecutors said.
Delgado is an Albany Park resident who works for a company called Prospect, which assists air travelers who need help getting around at O'Hare. He was charged with two counts of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm and two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
The victim whose legs were run over was taken to a hospital, treated for "severe injuries" and released, prosecutors said. The other victim suffered broken ribs and a broken clavicle and was still hospitalized Tuesday.
Prosecutors offered no motive for the incident.
But when Delgado appeared briefly in court Tuesday, his attorney claimed that the victims were the "aggressors."
"The victims followed my client in their car," Scott Gordon argued.
Delgado, of the 4400 block of North Kasson Street, was ordered held on $200,000 bail by Cook County Judge Donald Panarese Jr.
