$5K bail for Northwest Side man charged with minibike groping in Noble Square

Bail was set at $5,000 on Saturday for a Northwest Side minibiker accused of groping a woman and punching her husband during a brazen attack earlier this fall at a busy Noble Square intersection.

Judge Michael Clancy ordered 30-year-old Zachary Konecki not to contact the alleged victims, who were on bicycles when he pulled up to them on a minibike near Milwaukee Avenue and Augusta Boulevard the afternoon of Sept. 22, according to Cook County prosecutors.

The biker grabbed the woman’s buttocks in a “disgusting, sexual way,” she said in a social media post after the encounter, prompting her husband to chase Konecki about a half-mile up Milwaukee to Division Street.

That’s where Konecki punched the man in the face before speeding away, prosecutors said.

He was wearing gloves with reinforced knuckles that left her husband with a concussion, “splayed out on the street and unresponsive,” the woman said. She shared photos of the assailant on Facebook.

Konecki was arrested at his Dunning neighborhood home on Wednesday and charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault in a public place.

“I’m happy to see that he’s being held accountable for what he did to me and my husband,” alleged victim Madeleine Brown told the Sun-Times on Friday, agreeing to be identified.

Konecki was silent during his Saturday appearance before Clancy at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, wearing a blue hoodie and flannel pants. According to his public defender, Konecki lives with his father and works full-time for a child-proofing company.

He has no prior convictions in Cook County, but does have a criminal record in McHenry County, prosecutors said.

Konecki would have to post $500 for release from jail ahead of his next court date Nov. 20.