Thumbs up! Neighborhood pest, arrested 75 times since 2015, finally gets shipped to prison

By Tim Hecke

CHICAGO — Sean Hill, the incorrigible nuisance arrested 75 times since 2015 and 12 times this year, will not be getting arrested for a while. That’s because a judge finally decided to send him to prison.

Many of the 54-year-old’s arrests involved allegations of randomly battery people and grabbing women he did not know, usually downtown. But he’s going to prison for robbing an Old Town liquor store twice this year.

On March 9, he allegedly took a bottle of Tito’s vodka from Garfield’s Beverage, 1437 North Wells, and told a store employee that he had a gun. One month later, he stole a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, warning, “I will kill you if you take another step,” while reaching into his pocket as if he had a weapon, a CPD report said.

Prosecutors charged him with two counts of robbery and misdemeanor theft on May 26.

Records show Hill has pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated robbery in exchange for concurrent six-year sentences from Judge Aleksandra Gillespie. He’s expected to be paroled after serving half of that time, in May 2027.

But the real story is all the other problems Hill managed to cause this year.

He was arrested downtown three times in March: for two counts of misdemeanor battery on March 8, for which he eventually received 30 days time served, and shoplifting on March 12 and 19. In the March 12 case, the manager of Foxtrot, 23 West Maple, reported that Hill stole wine in the morning, then returned and stole two more bottles later that day. A patron who tried to stop him reported that Hill raised a wine bottle overhead and threatened to hit him with it, allegations that resulted in an additional charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in both shoplifting cases on April 3.

Five days later, he got arrested again at a Near North Side Walgreens after allegedly shoplifting from the store twice on April 8. He allegedly took liquor, battery-powered toothbrushes, and other items the first time and two bottles of liquor the second time.

Hill allegedly told arresting officers that he planned to sell the merchandise on the street. The cops noted that Hill “does not have the suffice [sic] number of convictions for a felony upgrade.”

The officers were referring to a policy adopted by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx shortly after she took office in December 2016 in which shoplifters are only charged with felonies if the value of the stolen merchandise exceeds $1,000 or they have ten previous felony convictions. Beginning Monday, former justice and prosecutor Eileen O’Neill Burke is replacing Foxx. She has vowed to enforce the state’s shoplifting laws by charging thefts of more than $300 as a felony.

Hill pleaded guilty on June 3, receiving a 100-day sentence from Judge Donald Panarese. However, while the case was pending, he managed to get arrested three more times:

On April 22, he was charged with shoplifting from a Gold Coast 7-Eleven and possessing a crack pipe. Records show that the prosecution dropped the case on June 21, even though he didn’t show up for court.

On May 2, a woman reported that Hill spat on the right side of her face inside a parking garage in the 1200 block of North Wells. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery on the same day as the Walgreens case and received the same sentence: 100 days.

On July 21, while wearing his ankle monitor for the pending liquor store robbery cases, Hill allegedly spat in the face of a 29-year-old woman near a parking garage at State and Ohio. She returned to the garage the next day to see if she could find surveillance video of the incident. As she walked down a stairwell at the garage, Hill allegedly jumped out of a hiding place. She said he politely opened the door for her and then slapped her buttocks as she passed by.

Hill was finally arrested the next day after a 24-year-old woman told police that he “just grabbed all over her body” at an ATM in the 1100 block of North Clark, a CPD report said. The woman told police he grabbed and slapped her buttocks during the assault. Police found him nearby.

Police only charged Hill with three counts of misdemeanor battery, two for the first woman and one for the second. Still on electronic monitoring, Hill was released from the police station the next morning with instructions to show up for court on September 3.

Two days later, on July 25, Hill managed to get arrested twice within nine hours. First, at 4:16 a.m., when most people on electronic monitoring should be in their homes, Hill was arrested for misdemeanor theft at a hotel just off the Magnificent Mile, police records show. Incredibly, the police released Hill—and his ankle monitor—seven hours later, at 11:16 a.m.

By 12:40 p.m., Hill was back in the Gold Coast. We know this because, according to a CPD report, that’s when a 39-year-old woman reported that he spat on her arm and body as she walked near Maple and Dearborn.

This time, at long last, Hill was taken to court so prosecutors could try to revoke his pretrial release in the pending robbery cases. Judge David Kelly granted that request. In September, Hill pleaded guilty to a number of misdemeanor battery cases in exchange for a 250-day sentence.