COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — The man who was charged with grabbing and forcibly kissing an Edgewater runner — and later implicated by several others who allege similar harassment stories — was released from jail Thursday.
Ilyas Jama, 33, had been in custody awaiting trial for the runner attack since late August. On Thursday, Cook County Judge Robert Kuzas set a trial date of Sept. 22 and said Jama could be released on his own recognizance as long as he doesn't contact the 32-year-old victim.
While that battery case moved forward this week, a separate assault case — in which Jama is accused of threatening to sexually assault a woman and murder her husband — was dismissed when the victim failed to appear in court Wednesday. She told DNAinfo Chicago she couldn't find a babysitter. Prosecutors said they could still reinstate charges in that incident within 160 days.
In court Thursday, prosecutors objected to Jama's release, citing his "potential danger to the community" since he's accused of "running up to a total stranger, a lone single female on the sidewalk" and "kissing her forcibly."
But Jama's public defender claimed Jama and the victim had "multiple interactions on the street" before the Aug. 5 incident. Jama waved and blew kisses at the woman — and she waved and blew kisses right back, he alleged.
"That's gross and totally not true ... no, no," the victim, who asked only to be referred to by her first name, Liz, told DNAinfo Chicago on Thursday. "Like, who does that? Ew, no. That's really kind of upsetting, actually."
The Edgewater resident, 32, said she's never spoken with the public defender and no one from his office has tried to contact her. She called the attorney's allegations "a load of crap."
The first time Liz ever saw Jama, she said, was on Aug. 5 when he grabbed her and kissed her face as she finished her daily run on Devon Avenue about 5:15 p.m. In a move fueled by adrenaline and shock, Liz chased Jama several blocks before coming face-to-face with him on Broadway.
She snapped a photo of Jama and shared her story on EveryBlock after two female witnesses told Liz they'd also had problems with the man. One woman claimed Jama tried to steal her purse, while the other said Jama harassed her when she refused to give him money, Liz said.
"I had actually never seen that guy before I chased him down, and I definitely wouldn't be blowing kisses at people," Liz said Thursday. "Yeah, no, I generally am not in the habit of blowing kisses at people."
Jama was arrested for the attack on Aug. 17 after Liz's fiance spotted the man and called police. It was at least the fourth time Jama was arrested that month.
On Aug. 7 — just two days after he allegedly attacked Liz — Jama was arrested about 11 a.m. in the 1500 block of West Devon Avenue. He had allegedly asked Anna Riviera, 26, several lewd questions before threatening to sexually assault her and kill her husband, court records show.
Jama approached Riviera "multiple times and told her she "going to be a pretty widow because I'm going to kill your husband," according to an arrest report.
The incident was the culmination of an at least six-week harassment campaign by Jama against Riviera and her cousin, who'd been calling police "daily" asking for help and requesting to file a police report, Riviera said.
"He shouldn't be out in the streets," she told DNAinfo Chicago on Thursday.
Since Riviera and her cousin, Nicole Erazo Heredia, didn't feel supported by police, the women said, they bought a canister of pepper spray and began "switching off" who held it depending on where they went.
Riviera, who often walks with her cousin and their combined six kids, said Jama repeatedly made threatening and suggestive gestures toward the women in front of the kids — all of whom are younger than 8.
Heredia called the escalating sexual violence "one of the worst thing that I've gone though."
The harassment got to the point where Heredia's 5-year-old daughter asked to skip summer camp because she was scared of running into the "bad man" as the family walked there.
On the day Riviera was threatened, she was standing across from a bus stop with both sets of children, as she waited for her cousin to get off the bus near Greenview and Devon, she said.
Jama soon arrived at the bus stop, where he'd been know to harass neighbors almost daily for weeks, Riviera said. He spotted Riviera, started "cussing her out" in the middle of the street and making death threats.
Riviera, who'd been holding the pepper spray that day, took it out of her purse and began to shake it, she said, and Jama ran away. The women demanded a police report be filed.
They claim they'd been calling police for weeks trying to get action taken against Jama.
"Every day I woke up with the mentality of like, either he's gonna go to jail or I'm gonna go to jail because the day he touches me is the day I'm not gonna just stand there and not do nothing," Heredia said, adding that the situation was becoming "awkward" because she wasn't getting help from the people she was talking to about the harassment. "I got to a point where I was thinking: Is it better for him just to rape somebody or do something to somebody so people can actually take it seriously? Like, what are the police waiting for?"
Riviera said the police came, once, but discouraged her from filing a police report until they talked to Jama. Riviera said she watched as four officers spoke with the man before heading off.
Heredia recalled one instance where she called police and waited at the corner of Clark and Devon with her children for an hour, but the police never arrived. There's a police station a block up the street at 6464 N. Clark St.
Riviera and Heredia said neighbors have shared similar harassment stories about Jama, including men. Both women said they once saw Jama grab an elderly woman's breast as she waited at a bus stop and refused to give Jama money. They haven't seen the woman at her usual bus stop since.
Now, they worry for their children and want police to take them seriously.
In addition to the battery case, which is slated for a Sept. 22 trial, Jama has one other pending case: a reckless conduct charge that stemmed from an Aug. 11 arrest. In that instance, Jama was spotted drinking from a bottle of Dimitri Vodka and running into traffic, court records show. Jama will appear in court Sept. 9.
Earlier in August, he was convicted of trespassing at a restaurant in the 6200 block of North Clark Street. Jama was sentenced to one year of court supervision.
In court Thursday, Jama testified that he's currently unemployed and doesn't have money or a place to stay. Jama said he has three children — ages 5, 4 and 2 — who live in Somalia.
He testified on Thursday that he's an American citizen. Of the four arrest reports attached to Jama's case files, two list his place of birth as Somalia, one lists Illinois and one lists Tennessee.
Judge Kuzas told Jama that if he is released on his own recognizance before the Sept. 22 trial, he cannot have any contact with the victim in the case and is required to show up for subsequent court dates.
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