A former Chicago cab driver was convicted Friday of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman in the Lincoln Square neighborhood during a 2012 robbery attempt.
Admon Shasho, 30, was convicted by a jury of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of attempted robbery for the attack of a 21-year-old woman in the early morning hours of April 14, 2012, according to a statement from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Shasho was driving his cab when he saw the woman, who was listening to music through the speakers of her phone in the 2300 block of West Sunnyside, the state’s attorney’s office said. Shasho parked his vehicle and followed the woman into an alley and attacked her.
The woman’s cries were heard by a sleeping resident who grabbed a shovel and ran barefoot to her aid.
Within minutes, architect Ron Psenka, then 48, helped police arrest Shasho, the Sun-Times previously reported.
Prosecutors have said that Shasho threatened to kill his victim before Psenka intervened.
“It was after 4 a.m. and I was asleep on the couch,” Psenka previously told the Sun-Times. “When my wife woke me and told me that a woman was being attacked in the alley outside, I leapt to me feet and asked her to get me a bat. But there wasn’t time so I ran out the back door and grabbed a shovel.”
Shasho grabbed the victim and attempted to take her phone, but she yelled and resisted. Shasho then put his hand over her mouth and told her to shut up because he had a knife. He then took the woman to the ground and sexually assaulted her.
Psenka said that “as soon as he saw me coming, he ran — I guess he was scared of the shovel.”
While his wife dialed 911, Psenka said he first checked on the victim’s well-being, then, shoeless and wearing just the shorts and T-shirt he’d been sleeping in, chased Shasho three and a half blocks through Welles Park to Western.
At one point Shasho grabbed a stick to fight, but apparently winded by the chase, he was arrested by police near Western, the Sun-Times reported.
Shasho is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 2.
