Attempted Kidnapping Conviction Vacated, Woodridge Man Back in Court

JOLIET, IL — A Woodridge man sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly attempting to kidnap two teenage girls was returned to court Tuesday after his conviction was vacated.

Kareem Green was deprived of his right to have an attorney present when he was questioned by the police, the appellate court ruled, and his statement to detectives should not have been used at trial.

Green, 23, has already been in prison for more than a year. He was sentenced in October 2015 after he was found guilty the previous August of aggravated battery, attempted kidnapping, unlawful restraint and battery.

Green was in custody Tuesday at the Will County jail. He had been incarcerated at Shawnee Correctional Center.

Prosecutors claimed that Green, in January 2013, drove his Ford Explorer past a 16-year-old girl who was walking along Far Hills Drive in a subdivision north of Bolingbrook High School.

Green stopped his Explorer, got out and jogged toward the girl, prosecutors said. He allegedly passed her by, but then turned around and ran straight for her. Green grabbed the girl and tried to pull her into his sport utility vehicle, prosecutors said, but a motorist pulled up, got out of his car and frightened Green away.

Two days later, Green followed another 16-year-old into an apartment building on Woodcreek Drive in Bolingbrook, prosecutors said. He allegedly grabbed the teen but she elbowed him and screamed. A resident emerged from an apartment and Green fled, prosecutors said.

The police developed a sketch from descriptions the girls gave of their attacker. Working with the sketch and descriptions of the Explorer, detectives deduced Green was the culprit and arrested him in March 2013.

After Green was sentenced, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow told how the Woodridge man was a danger to society.

“A dangerous man has been taken off our streets because of two brave girls who refused to become victims, a courageous good Samaritan who refused to look the other way and dogged police work by detectives who refused to let their community become the hunting grounds for a predator,” Glasgow said in a press release.

image via Will County Sheriff's Department