11 years for fatally shooting friend while waving gun around

Richard Magnan. Photo from Chicago Police.

An alleged gang member who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his friend while waving a gun around after a Fourth of July party was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Richard Magnan, 35, pleaded guilty to being an armed habitual criminal and involuntary manslaughter at a hearing Monday before Judge Matthew Coghlan, according to court and prison records.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison on the first count, and five years on the second count, to be served concurrently for a total of 11, court records show.

Magnan, who has numerous facial tattoos, including one that reads, “F— the world” and a White Sox logo, was friends with Joel Bentley—the man he shot in the early morning hours of July 5, prosecutors said previously.

They were at a Fourth of July party together before they and another friend walked to a Walgreens parking lot in the 6200 block of South Austin Avenue, prosecutors said.

It was there that Magnan grabbed a gun from his truck and started waving it around. His friends told him to put it away but it went off, striking the 30-year-old Bentley in the abdomen.

Bentley, of the 5000 block of South Keating Avenue, died hours later at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Magnan fled but was arrested in a Willowbrook hotel and admitted shooting his friend, prosecutors said.

Both were purported members of the 2-6 street gang, prosecutors claimed.

Magnan, of the 2600 block of West 90th Place in Evergreen Park, will receive credit for 154 days spent in jail since his arrest, records show.