It’s hard to believe he’s been walking freely for months. A woman overdosed in his home. He concealed her death and dumped her body in a bleach-filled trash can in his back yard – where it remained for more than two months. His alleged crimes were heinous. Abuse of a corpse. Concealing a death and obstruction of justice. Class 4 felonies.
Yet after Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez was finally arrested, he couldn’t be held in jail. His alleged crimes didn’t qualify for pretrial detention under the SAFE-T Act, a law passed in 2021 that makes it more difficult to detain alleged criminals for certain crimes. The Act also made Illinois the first state in the country to ban cash bail altogether.
Incredibly, authorities had yet another opportunity to put Mendoza-Gonzalez behind bars. He’s an illegal immigrant and could have been handed over to federal authorities. But Illinois’ sanctuary status meant, again, he was allowed to walk free while awaiting trial.
It’s an infuriating example of how criminals in Illinois are prioritized over victims and their families. And how two laws – Illinois’ sanctuary status and the SAFE-T Act – can combine to wreak havoc on Illinoisans.
How many offenders in Illinois have been let out before trial due to an undetainable crime and then committed yet more offenses? It’s hard to know, but CWB Chicago in their “not horrible” series has at least compiled a list of individuals accused of killing, shooting, or trying to kill or shoot others while on pretrial release for a felony allegation.
Hellbound and Down 