A man beaten by fellow gang members in a videotaped punishment fatally shot one of them in December after complaining about being punished, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Jermin Beganovic, 29, was shot in the head and killed with his own gun about 7:05 p.m. Dec. 17 in his home in the 5300 block of North Cumberland Avenue by Jesus “Lil’ Jessie” Hernandez, 20, according to prosecutors and court records. Hernandez, of the 5500 block of South Loomis Street, was ordered held without bail in a hearing Wednesday before Judge John F. Lyke, according to court records.
At the time he was arrested Tuesday, Hernandez already was in Cook County Jail because he is facing a felony domestic battery charge and a charge of violating an order of protection, following his pleading guilty to misdemeanor domestic battery last year, according to court records.
In December, Hernandez was “issued a violation” by other members of the Insane Dragons gang because he had stolen a gun from another gang member and sold it, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Jamie Santini said Wednesday. His punishment was to be beaten for two minutes by other gang members, and they recorded the two-minute beating when it took place Dec. 16.
Gang members including Hernandez and Beganovic met after the beating and Hernandez, Beganovic and a third person then went to Beganovic’s apartment on Cumberland, prosecutors said. Investigators later found video surveillance that showed them going into the apartment.
Inside, Hernandez complained about his punishment and said the beating was harsher than he should have gotten for what he did, prosecutors said. He was upset that some of those who beat him also kicked, insulted and humiliated him because the violation was captured on video and was being shown to gang members who had not been there.
The third person left and heard an argument from inside the apartment while he was outside, prosecutors said. Surveillance video showed Hernandez and Beganovic going in and out of the apartment together several times the night of Dec. 16 into early Dec. 17.
At some point, Hernandez grabbed a loaded gun with an extended magazine that Beganovic kept in the apartment and shot Beganovic in the head, prosecutors said.
Hernandez wiped his fingerprints from things in the apartment and took the gun and Beganovic’s car keys before leaving the building, prosecutors said. Video surveillance shows him leaving, carrying what appears to be a gun, and then driving away in Beganovic’s car.
Chicago speed camera footage shows Hernandez drove to the 5500 block of South Loomis Boulevard, where he lived with his mother.
Hernandez parked the car near 5600 S. Loomis and tried to set it on fire by lighting something tucked into the car’s gas tank, prosecutors said. Emergency crews found the car exterior partially burned.
When police got in touch with the car’s owner, Beganovic’s mother, she tried to reach him but couldn’t, so she went to his apartment, prosecutors said. She found the front door of the apartment open and Beganovic dead on his couch, then called police sometime around 4:15 p.m. Dec. 17, according to records.
Police found a shell casing in the apartment but didn’t find the gun, prosecutors said. It wasn’t immediately clear if it had been found by the time Hernandez was charged.
Hernandez’s arrest last week on felony domestic battery charges is his third arrest on domestic violence charges in the last three years, according to court records.
Hernandez already was under an order of protection when he was arrested on a domestic battery and violation of an order of protection charge following an attack Aug. 24, 2016, in the 2400 block of North Kilpatrick Avenue, according to police and court records. Those charges eventually were dropped.
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After another attack about 6:30 a.m. May 8, 2017, at the same apartment on Kilpatrick, Hernandez was charged again with domestic battery, and a long-term order of protection was issued. He pleaded guilty to domestic battery in June and was given a year’s conditional discharge — a type of probation — court records show. Later in the year, he was charged with violating the terms of conditional discharge and then, on Nov. 14 — a month before Beganovic’s killing — given another year of conditional discharge by Judge Diana A. Kenworthy after pleading guilty to violating conditional discharge, according to court records.
About 7:45 a.m. Jan. 20, while he was on conditional discharge in the 2017 domestic battery case, Hernandez choked someone in a domestic attack, damaged property and violated an order of protection on the block where he lives, according to court records. He was arrested Jan. 22 and charged with felony aggravated domestic battery involving attempted strangulation, criminal damage to property and violation of an order of protection, according to records. The same day, he was ordered held without bail, according to records.
baiduhai’s Megan Crepeau contributed.