The attorney for a man accused of fracturing a baby’s skull with a piece of concrete said his client never intended to hurt anyone when he threw the chunk through the window of a home in Englewood.
“It’s a tragedy (but) there’s no evidence he ever intended to hurt anyone,” said Nicholas Giordano, attorney for Jeremy O’Neal, 25. “We just hope the baby’s OK. Nobody ever had any intention of hurting a child.”
Judge Peggy Chiampas ordered O’Neal held on $150,000 bail on one count of aggravated battery to a child under 13 causing permanent disability.
O’Neal had gone to a home in the 1400 block of West 73rd Place around 8:25 p.m. on May 3 and demanded to see a 19-year-old woman who sometimes lived there, according to the baby’s mother and police.
Janica Lee, the mother of 7-month-old Jamyah Lee, said she heard O’Neal step onto the front porch of her home and begin “yelling and screaming” at her father.
“He said, ‘OK, since she’s not here, you’re all fitting to pay for this,'” Lee said.
O’Neal left, returned minutes later, exchanged more words with Lee’s father and then tossed the piece of concrete through a window, Lee said.
“All I heard is the glass breaking and my baby screaming,” she said. “I just stood there and froze.”
Family members found the 7-month-old inside a bedroom with a head wound and the brick laying next to her. They called 911 and Jamyah was rushed to Comer Children’s Hospital.
Jamyah was released two days later. Doctors told Lee her daughter had suffered two fractures and there was bleeding on her brain. Jamyah will likely have to take medication to prevent seizures, Lee said.
O’Neal, who court records show has a lengthy arrest record, was taken into custody Thursday.
The judge ordered O’Neal not to have any contact with the woman he was trying to find that night.