The mother of Robert Crimo III, the aspiring rapper who is accused of shooting seven people dead during a July 4 parade in a Chicago suburb in 2022, maintained her son’s innocence despite his guilty plea in a hearing this week.
During the hearing, Crimo III’s mother, Denise Pesina, had to be reprimanded and eventually removed by the judge after she began spekaing loudly during proceedings.
Pesina made her feelings known and muttered something under her breath as he made the admission. Yet, it was loud enough for Judge Victoria Rossetti to overhear, forcing her to halt proceedings, reported WGN-TV.
“My son is innocent... He has no free will to make his own choices, and he has never had any outside help. They regulate everything. He has been a prisoner, and this is wrong”, she continued to tell the channel.
Prosecutors initially charged him with 21 counts of first-degree murder — three counts for each person killed — as well as 48 counts of attempted murder following the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois – a wealthy suburb 30 miles from Chicago.
Before opening statements on Monday, Crimo changed his plea to guilty.
The withdrawal of his earlier not-guilty plea stunned the Lake County Courthouse as it came just moments before opening statements were due to be read out. The trial was anticipated to go on for at least a month.
Pesina was escorted to the bench by bailiffs on Rosetti’s orders and told: “We’re going to move forward.”
“You are not a party to this proceeding. If you would like to stay in the courtroom, please have a seat and be quiet”, Rossetti said.
The judge permitted her to stay, but the shooters’ mother was reportedly visibly rattled and stormed out of the Waukegan courthouse and addressed the media.
Last week, almost three years on from the attack, prosecutors dropped 48 serious counts of aggravated battery against Crimo without explanation.
In the lead-up to the trial, Crimo rejected a plea deal from prosecutors.
Authorities say that Crimo had meticulously calculated the bloodshed. They alleged he planted himself carefully in a destructive vantage point, on a roof, before he fired a round of bullets at the crowds below.
Two of the victims that day had been the parents of a toddler, and the dozens wounded included retirees in their 80s as well as an 8-year-old boy, who was left partially paralyzed by Crimo’s assault.
Witnesses described the pandemonium as shots rang out, followed by sheer terror as families scrambled to escape the parade.
Who were the victims killed that day?
In 2023, Crimos’ father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct after he allowed his son at age 19 to apply for a gun license with his father’s sponsorship.
A relative had warned police that the alleged shooter possessed a collection of knives and had even threatened to “kill everyone”, prior to obtaining the license.
The alleged shooter’s behavior before the trial was erratic. His behavior included failing to turn up at scheduled hearings, refusing to leave his Lake County cell, and firing his public defenders, opting to represent himself, before reversing the decision.
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering announced that an Independence Day parade would return, but without fireworks, since the “community trauma” had been so catastrophic.
Crimo is set to be sentenced by Judge Rosetti on April 23.
