A 20-year-old former Senn High School student was sentenced to 40 years in prison Monday for the attempted murder of a North Side man whom he hated, a prosecutor asserted, ”simply because he was a homosexual.”
Cook County Circuit Judge Jack Stein sentenced James Ross to an extended term-10 years beyond the maximum 30 years-because of the brutality of the crime.
Assistant Cook County State`s Atty. Casey Bartnik said Ross attempted to stab the victim, whom he had met only hours before, with a dull kitchen knife and strangle him with a telephone in the victim`s apartment in the 5100 block of North Winthrop Avenue on Dec. 29, 1990.
Following that, he bound him with duct tape and then pitched him off a fourth-floor back porch ”like a bag of garbage,” Bartnik said. The fall broke the man`s back in five places and shattered both his feet.
A Skokie courthouse jury convicted Ross on Nov. 9.
Fortunately, Bartnik said, Ahad landed on his feet on the concrete 40 feet below. ”He survived to an extent,” he said, looking at Ahad seated in a wheelchair.
