Shorewood Mobile Home Park Arrest: Strangling Defendant Set Free

SHOREWOOD — A 34-year-old man from Richton Park has been released from the Will County Jail following his arrest at Shorewood's Imperial Mobile Home Park where Jacque Simmons is accused of trying to strangle a woman who resides there.

Even though the charges are detainable under the SAFE-T-Act, Will County Judge Marzell Richardson disagreed with the prosecution's petition to keep Simmons locked up in the jail. Simmons faces five total charges: aggravated domestic battery, aggravated battery and three counts of domestic battery.

Instead, the judge ordered Simmons' release from custody on Sept. 12, and the judge ordered the defendant to stay away from the woman he is accused of strangling. Simmons must also stay away from Imperial Mobile Home Park, located at 106 East Jefferson Street, court files show.

The judge also put Simmons on electronic monitoring.

According to the petition to deny pretrial release from Will County's prosecutors:

On Sept. 10, around 10 p.m., Shorewood police were sent to the mobile home park for a domestic battery. The victim told the officers that she and Simmons were in an argument, and he grabbed her and dropped her to the ground.

"He then restrained her with his knees placed on top of both of her elbows," the petition advised the judge. "At one point, the defendant placed his knee on her chest. Defendant then strangled (her) with both hands placed around her neck. According to (her), defendant impeded her normal breathing for approximately two to three seconds. They both then wrestled on the ground."

The victim told Shorewood's officers she scratched Simmons to get away from him.

She described the pain of being choked around her neck as an eight out 10. During the incident, the 30-year-old woman crawled toward her kitchen and tried to grab a knife, court records show, but Simmons pulled her hair and pulled her back to the ground, causing her to hit the back of her head on the ground.

"She stated there have been previous domestic battery incidents, but none of them were reported to the police," prosecutors pointed out.

Simmons was interviewed by police and he gave a different story. He maintained they argued after he picked her up from work and when he tried to leave, she blocked the door. Simmons claimed she scratched him and squeezed him "in his private parts," court records show.

At that point, Simmons said he grabbed her, turned her and removed the knife from her hand and Simmons insisted that he "gently placed her on the ground," court files show.