Father Of Accused Highland Park Shooter Fails To Exclude Evidence, Son Won't Testify

WAUKEGAN, IL — With a week to go before the trial of the accused Highland Park shooter's father is due to begin, the judge presiding over it rejected defense motions to block testimony from several prosecution witnesses.

That means text messages between Bob Crimo and his son, testimony from one of his son's former camp counselors and testimony from a therapist for another of Crimo's sons have all been accepted into evidence in Crimo's trial.

In a bench trial starting Monday, Lake County Associate Judge George Strickland will determine whether Crimo "recklessly perform[ed] an act" that caused great bodily harm because Crimo waived his right to a jury trial.

Crimo sought to call his son to testify, but after the public defender assigned as his defense attorney said the alleged gunman would assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, Strickland said there was no reason to bring the son to court.

However, a recording of his son's confession can be included, the judge ruled. During about eight hours of interrogation, Crimo's son confessed to the shooting and provided additional information to corroborate his statements — like telling his police and FBI interrogators where he had buried a cellphone in Wisconsin.

"In his statements, Crimo admitted to the detectives that he opened fire from a rooftop during the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park," George Gomez, Crimo's defense attorney, said in a motion. "He went into detail about his actions, thoughts, and feelings both leading up to the day of the parade and during the shooting."

Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart said Monday that there is a 35-minute portion near the start of Crimo's son's seven-and-a-half-hour interrogation during which he reportedly describes how he planned the shooting, opened fire on the crowd and fled the scene dressed as a woman.

Gomez, who previously failed to convince Strickland to toss out the case, was unsuccessful in his efforts to block testimony from a pair of witnesses who the prosecution suggests will show Crimo should have been aware of red flags indicating his son was a future mass shooter.

One of those witnesses was a counselor at a Christian-based outreach who interacted with Crimo and his son about a decade ago and contacted a Highland Park police detective.

Rinehart argued on Monday the witness heard Crimo's son make statements regarding a school shooting and alerted Crimo. But Crimo reportedly dismissed the incident, and during a discussion about whether his son should have guns, the teen — then a Highland Park High School freshman — pretended to shoot the witness in the neck with a toy gun, according to the prosecutor.

But according to Gomez, the defense attorney, the witness gave three different years regarding when the incident occurred and provided names of people who were unable to recollect the incident.

Prosecutors also plan to call Crimo's younger son, Sam, and his therapist, who had twice called Highland Park police to report concerns about the elder son, then 18.

On April 29, and Sept. 5, 2019, — a few months prior to Crimo's decision to sign off on the FOID card application — the therapist called police for a wellbeing check.

Text messages between Crimo and his son from Sept. 2, 2019 — days before the second wellbeing check — are also to be introduced as evidence over the objection of Crimo's attorney.

According to Gomez, prosecutors claim the messages were extracted from Crimo's son's phone in a forensic analysis.

"However, after a thorough review of Robert Crimo III's phone extraction, such conversations do not exist," the defense attorney argued in his motion to exclude the messages.

Gomez said he expected prosecutors to use the messages to assert that Crimo's son was trying to harm himself during a specific time.

"It is the Defense's position that the content and the terms of these text messages are highly disputed in this matter," he said.

Crimo faces seven felony counts of reckless conduct because he signed off on his son's application for a firearm owners identification, or FOID, card in December 2019.

The following summer, his son acquired an arsenal of firearms, including two semi-automatic assault-style rifles, according to court filings.

Then, last July 4, Crimo's son is accused of opening fire on the Highland Park Independence Day parade, killing seven and wounding about 50 others.

Each reckless conduct count corresponds to one of the slain paradegoers: Jacquelyn "Jacki" Sundheim, 63, of Highland Park; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico; Katherine Goldstein, 64, of Highland Park; Irina McCarthy, 35, of Highland Park; and Kevin McCarthy, 37, of Highland Park, all died at the scene. Stephen Straus, 88, of Highland Park, and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, died in the days following the shooting.

A final pretrial hearing is scheduled for Friday ahead of opening statements on Monday.

Related: Judge Declines To Dismiss Charges Accused Highland Park Shooter's Dad