Last week, a woman was lit on fire while riding the Blue Line in Chicago during an unprovoked attack. Now new evidence has emerged that this was not only a preventable attack, but a judge let the accused attacker off easy after a brutal assault that was caught on camera back in August.
And the judge, Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, has apparently proudly spoken about her unconventional approach to criminal justice in her position of authority.
‘However, I had a chance as a prosecutor to make a difference as to what cases come in.’
Libs of TikTok posted a video of Judge Molina-Gonzalez apparently boasting about her soft-on-crime approach in a 2021 speech about the “power of diversity,” according to a screen slide.
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The judge is heard talking about a common $354 fine in the video: “Some of the judges that I work with came from money, so $354 is no big deal. But to most of the people that come to my courtroom, it is a big deal.”
“And so I always offer them the opportunity to do community service.”
Judge Molina-Gonzalez also seemed to suggest that she filtered the cases based on whether the defendants “look like” her.
“You know, being a Latina in the office, people would tell me, like, ‘Don’t you feel like you’re prosecuting your own people?’ But it’s true, there are a lot of defendants that look like me. However, I had a chance as a prosecutor to make a difference as to what cases come in. I had a chance as a prosecutor to decide what offers were appropriate,” she can be heard saying, seemingly referring to her time as a prosecutor.
She also claimed in an interview posted to the Illinois courts website that “diversity on the bench is important because it allows all people to be represented. It instills faith and integrity in our judicial system.”
Lawrence Reed, the 50-year-old accused of lighting the Chicago woman on fire, reportedly has a rap sheet of over 70 arrests and 13 convictions prior to the barbaric attack last Monday.
Judge Molina-Gonzalez placed Reed on a lenient electronic monitoring system after he allegedly slapped a female social worker unconscious in August.
“I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to,” she said at the time after the prosecutor warned that an ankle monitor “could not protect the victim or the community from another vicious, random, and spontaneous attack,” according to CWB Chicago.
The female victim, 26, is reportedly still in the hospital in critical condition.
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