When prosecutors asked a Cook County judge to detain Jacob Sickel as a threat to public safety after charging him with three armed robberies, she instead sent him home with an ankle monitor. Two years later, Sickel pleaded guilty Thursday, and thanks to the honors he earned while wearing that monitor, he has about 10 months left to serve behind bars.
Sickel, 22, of Brookfield, was sentenced to six years in prison on each of three armed robbery charges, to be served concurrently. But by the time he appeared in court Thursday, he had already accumulated 788 days of sentence credit on the monitor, and after applying the standard 50 percent sentence reduction to his six-year term, about 308 days remain.
The robberies happened on a Monday morning in February 2024. Prosecutors said Sickel and an unknown accomplice made their way across the South Side for two hours, targeting people sitting alone in parked vehicles. One man wore a black mask, the other white.
Starting about 5 a.m., the pair held a gun to a woman as she sat in her car in the 6300 block of South Mozart and demanded her valuables, prosecutors said. A short time later, they robbed a man in the 6900 block of South Pulaski. Around 7 a.m., they took an iPad from someone in the 3000 block of East 88th Street.
Within twenty minutes of that last robbery, Chicago police spotted a stolen Kia believed to be connected to the crimes. The driver crashed in the 5500 block of South Wells Street while trying to avoid a traffic stop, and two men ran away. The driver, who prosecutors say also brandished the gun during the robberies, escaped. Sickle didn’t do that.
Officers said he was still carrying some of the second victim’s belongings when they caught him. His arrest report described him as an admitted member of the 12th Street Players street gang in Berwyn.
During a detention hearing, prosecutors presented these charges to Judge Kelly McCarthy and asked her to keep Sickel locked up as a threat to public safety. Instead, she sent him home with an ankle monitor.
Under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act, defendants under pretrial supervision receive a day-to-day sentence reduction, regardless of whether they are homebound or outside the home during the two days per week of “essential travel” that the law allows. All 788 days Sickel spent on the monitor counted toward the prison sentence he received Thursday from Judge Peggy Chiampas.
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