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Gangbanger Pleads Guilty to Brutal Beating of Brian DeLeon, Authorities Say

By Erin Meyer | September 16, 2014 9:47am
 Esteban Miranda pleaded guilty to the savage beating of a Logan Square boy, Brian DeLeon, in September 2011. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Esteban Miranda pleaded guilty to the savage beating of a Logan Square boy, Brian DeLeon, in September 2011. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
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Illinois Department of Corrections

COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A purported Maniac Latin Disciple who was charged with beating 14-year-old Brian DeLeon has pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Esteban Miranda pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a judge to 23 years in prison on Aug. 27, almost three years after the Logan Square boy was discovered bleeding in the street by his young girlfriend, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune.

Miranda, 19 at the time of the attack, reportedly believed Brian to be a member of a rival gang. He confronted the boy in the 2900 block of West Bloomingdale Avenue, right outside Yates Elementary School, as Brian was walking home from his girlfriend's house.

Brian denied being in a gang, authorities said. Still, Miranda beat him with a baseball bat, even as the fellow gang members he was with at the time tried to make him stop, authorities said.

Brian's girlfriend, who received a threatening voicemail from Brian's cellphone a short time later, went looking for him. She found him in a pool of blood. 

The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he remained in a coma for an extended period.

Miranda was identified after the other gang members who were with him the night of the beating gave police his name, authorities said.

Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood sentenced Miranda to 23 years in prison in exchange for his guilty plea last month.

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