Final defendant in Facebook hate crime case sentenced to 7 years

The last of four people charged with hate crimes in the 2017 beating of a mentally disabled suburban teen was sentenced on Thursday to seven years in prison.

Tesfaye Cooper, 20, like his three co-defendants, had faced more than 50 felony counts following his arrest in the kidnapping and assault case that captured national attention in the weeks following President Donald Trump’s election victory.

Video of Cooper and co-defendant Jordan Hill taunting and hitting their victim –– a white teen who was a former classmate of Hill’s at a suburban alternative high school –– was live-streamed on Facebook and became the subject of frenzied internet debate, Cook County Judge William Hooks reminded Cooper before handing down sentence.

“A young lawyer I met a long time ago … his name was Barack Obama, he even had the fine occasion to make mention this (case),” Hooks said, referring to televised comments the then-president made in interviews.

“Do you know about that?”

Cooper, who has been jailed since January 2017, mumbled “no.”

“Well, he did,” Hooks said.

Cooper’s sentence is a year shorter than the 8-year term received by Hill, who admitted to sending text messages to the victim’s mother demanding $300 for his safe return.

The two-day ordeal began after Hill and the victim agreed to meet a McDonald’s in Streamwood. Hill and the teen stole a truck from from a lot in the suburb and eventually drove to the Chicago apartment of Tanishia Covington and her sister, Brittany. There, they were also joined by Cooper.

Cooper, Hill and Tanishia Covington and the victim drank and smoked marijuana before a “play fight” between Hill and the victim, who is schizophrenic, escalated, police said. By the time Brittany Covington began livestreaming, the teen was tied to a radiator, with duct tape over his mouth.

At one point, Hill cuts the victim’s clothes and hair with a knife, nicking his scalp. Among the taunts shouted at him were orders to say “I love black people” and “F— Trump.” Later, prosecutors said the teen was forced to drink water from a toilet bowl and lick the floor.

Cooper, who grew up in suburban Streamwood and Hoffman Estates, has no prior criminal record.

Hill also had no felony convictions, but police records from his hometown of Streamwood show a long history of minor encounters with police.

Tanishia Covington, 26, the oldest of the defendants, suffered from depression and had endured a litany of tragic events in her childhood, including the dire medical condition of her son, who was born shortly before her arrest and has been hospitalized with a congenital condition. She received a 3-year prison sentence. Brittany Covington, who had just turned 18 at the time of her arrest, had no criminal record. She spent 10 months in jail before she was released on a probation-only sentence.

The victim was not present in court on Thursday, but his sister and brother in-law met with the judge for several minutes in chambers before the hearing began. The victim’s family has reached out to social service agencies, hoping to secure services for the four defendants in prison and upon their release.

“They’re interested in making sure that when you go away that there are some resources that are available that will help you,” Hooks said. “To make you understand that hatred is not something that is going to be a possibility for you when you get out.”

One person who has worked with the victim and his family said their lobbying to get social services for the four defendants was “unprecedented” and surprising, given the furor the videos generated on social media.

“The internet would be very surprised by how this family has responded to what happened,” that person said.