Man gets 38 years for fatally shooting livery driver in 2014

A South Side man has been sentenced to 38 years in prison for the 2014 slaying of a livery driver just blocks away from U.S. Cellular Field.

Judge Vincent Gaughan handed down the sentence Monday to 21-year-old Courtney Ealy for the Feb. 22, 2014, shooting of Javan Boyd, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Ealy and 19-year-old Clint Massey were part of a group looking for retaliation for a previous shooting when they took three cars to the Wentworth Gardens apartment complex in the 3700 block of South Princeton, prosecutors said.

Ealy and Massey got out of their vehicle when they spotted Boyd in the driver seat of a car parked on the block. They both walked up to the passenger side and opened fire, shooting the 29-year-old seven times, prosecutors said.

Boyd, who had been waiting for a customer, was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he later died, authorities said.

Ealy, of the 300 block of East 60th Street, dropped his cellphone at the scene before he and Massey returned to their car and the group drove away, prosecutors said. Chicago Housing Authority surveillance cameras caught the shooting on video. Police also recovered Ealy’s fingerprint on the window of Boyd’s car.

The shooters were arrested in the weeks after the attack and both were convicted of first-degree murder. Massey, of the 6600 block of South Honore, is scheduled for sentencing June 14.