CHICAGO (WSVN) — A gang leader who was awarded $25 million in a wrongful conviction lawsuit is heading back behind bars after using his settlement to rebuild his street gang.
According to Fox 5, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber on Thursday sentenced 38-year-old Thaddeus Jimenez to over nine years in prison for weapons charges, after video showed him shooting rival gang members. The sentence comes five years after Jimenez sued the city of Chicago and the police department for a wrongful murder conviction.
The incriminating video was shot on an iPhone by Jimenez’s co-defendent Jose Roman, showing the pair driving around the city in August of 2015. Prosecutors said the two were looking for rival gang members. The video shows Jimenez shooting former gang member Earl Casteel in both legs before driving away.
Both Jimenez and Roman pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges, but will be back in court to stand trial in Casteel’s shooting.
At just 13 years old, Jimenez was charged with the 1993 murder of a 19-year-old gang member. He was released from prison in 2009 after witnesses recanted their testimony.
After winning the $25 million settlement, the Chicago Tribune reports that Jimenez spent millions on luxury cars for both himself and his gang, the Simon City Royals. The paper reports he also started a social media campaign to grow the gang, and paid members to tattoo their faces with the gang’s insignia.
I don’t want to get myself killed here but I’m gonna flat out say it. Gang members are dumb. They’re incredibly street savvy and smart when it comes to doing what they do specifically. Smuggling balloons of coke in their buttholes, hiding packs of cocaine in the under carriage and the inside of their car bumpers. They fucking used chemistry and science to synthesize a new potent form of drugs derived from cocaine, which is some how a plant that was turned into a powdered drug, that is much cheaper, gets people much higher, and gets drug lords paid much more. All of the things that strictly apply to criminals and drug users they probably are a master of their craft. But when it comes to real world, which they live in, they are idiots.
Does god himself need to fly down and tell you how big of a blessing it is to be awarded 25 million dollars of United States currency? Not to mention that shit isn’t even taxable! Like winning an enormous sum from the lottery is fun too but that shit gets chopped in half by taxes. This you get 25 millions free and you get to tell yourself that you beat the law. I would just run away from what ever gang life you have and just live easy for the rest of time. Like in the end of the day, a job is a job. Whether its accounting or working a restaurant or distributing narcotics throughout the city, the goal in the end should be to make enough money to walk away and live the rest of your life comfortably. How have cautionary tales not become a thing among gangs. Pablo Escobar could’ve walked away once he had his dinosaur ranch in Medellin. Just hand over the keys to the next guy but you make a blood pact that you become untouchable from that point on. Cause it’s like you can’t kill your boss who hands you the keys to the kingdom. On the small scale now for every day drug operations, this is enough. 25 Million is enough for one dude to just leave this all behind and if other gang members are insulted by that, they can go kick rocks. The end game is Money and relaxation. This guy had it handed to him and he fucking wasted it. Deserves jail alone just for that.
I will say though, the video of him just casually shooting a dudes Knee Caps is WILD.
The Ugly Orange 