Man Who Choked Woman After First Date Cannot Be Detained: Prosecutors

SKOKIE, IL — A Chicago man is accused of repeatedly choking a woman in her Glenview apartment the morning after a first date.

Kristian A. Raider, 38, of the 11700 block of South Bishop Street in the West Pullman neighborhood, was charged with aggravated battery with strangulation and unlawful restraint.

Raider turned himself in to the Glenview Police Department on Tuesday in connection with an incident that took place on Sept. 2, according to police and prosecutors.

Assistant State's Attorney Clara Malkin said Raider met the Glenview resident on the dating website Hinge several days before they met for the first time on Sept. 1. They went to dinner at a bowling alley restaurant in Northbrook and spent the night together at her apartment.

The next morning, they went to brunch and to the home of a friend of the woman before returning to her apartment, according to the prosecutor.

Without consent, Raider pulled the woman's hair and forcefully "sucked on her neck" before putting his hands around her neck and beginning to choke her, Malkin said.

After she initially escaped his grasp, she said, Raider followed her around her kitchen and grabbed her phone before bringing her to the floor and starting to choke her again.

"[Raider then] brought her to the floor and resumed choking her," Malkin said. "[She] was afraid for her life and was unable to move or escape during this time."

The woman was eventually able to get her phone back and call the friend who they had met with earlier that day. That friend called a neighbor in her apartment building, who went over to her unit to check on her, according to the prosecutor.

The neighbor asked Raider to leave but instead he stayed on the couch for another 20 minutes. When the neighbor checked on the woman again the next day he saw her bruises had worsened. Both the woman and the neighbor later identified Raider in a photo lineup.

According to prosecutors, the charges of unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with strangulation do not allow them to petition that a defendant be detained while awaiting trial.

If the aggravated battery had caused great bodily harm or been domestic in nature it would have been eligible for pretrial detention.

Likewise, if the unlawful restraint had been aggravated by having been committed with a weapon, it would be detainable under the Pretrial Fairness Act, a portion of the SAFE-T Act criminal law amendments that took effect last month.

Cook County Associate Judge Anthony Calabrese granted the prosecution's request that Raider be forbidden from having any contact with the Glenview woman he is accused of choking.

Raider's defense attorney, Joseph Storto, did not object to the no-contact order and said his client was not a danger to the woman.

"They met on a dating service and they knew each other for maybe 36 hours tops," Storto said.

Calabrese verified that prosecutors from the Cook County State's Attorney's Office were confident that they were legally unable to file a petition for Raider to be jailed ahead of trial.

"It's compelled that the defendant be released," Calabrese said.

"I don't have the discretion to hold the defendant — even given the extraordinary circumstances presented by the prosecution in terms of the nature of attack alleged on the complaining witness," he said.

"This particular offense does not fall into the category of offenses that the legislature and the governor should be included for pretrial detention."