Cabdriver accused of sexually assaulting passengers gets 35 years

(ROLLING MEADOWS) A Chicago cabdriver who attacked two women in the northwest suburbs was sentenced to 35 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to sexual assault.

Eric Chung, 31, was arrested in February 2013 after sexually assaulting a woman after she hailed a cab with her friends in Prospect Heights, police said previously.

Chung, of the 1900 block of South Wong Parkway in Chicago, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated criminal sexual assault at a hearing Wednesday, court records show.

According to Schaumburg police, Chung picked up the victim and her friends in his cab on Feb. 24, 2013. They made him stop and two of the women got out of the cab after he started to act “inappropriately” but he sped away before the third woman could get out.

Her friends immediately called police, and authorities traced the van to an office complex in the 800 block of East Algonquin Road, police said.

Schaumburg officers heard the 24-year-old woman yelling for help as they approached the van about 5:30 a.m., and caught Chung sexually assaulting her, police said.

Chung also tried to sexually assault a second woman, whom he also picked up in his cab in Prospect Heights on a separate occasion, Cook County state’s attorney’s office spokesman Stephen Campbell said.

Judge Bridget Hughes accepted the plea and sentenced Chung to 35 years in prison, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. He must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence and was given credit for about 600 days served in Cook County Jail.