The man accused of killing seven people at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade is due back in court Tuesday, his first appearance there since he was indicted on more than 100 felony counts.
Robert Crimo, 22, of Highland Park, is scheduled to appear in Lake County Court in front of Judge Victoria Rossetti. Crimo’s case is scheduled for case management, which is often a routine appearance intended to ensure that evidence is being shared and attorneys are working through any pretrial issues.
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Sometimes attorneys will file new motions at management conferences. As of Friday, there had been no new legal motions added to Crimo’s file at the Waukegan courthouse.
Attempts to reach Lake County prosecutors and Crimo’s public defenders were unsuccessful. And Highland Park police maintained their policy of not commenting on the still-active investigation into the mass shooting by declining to discuss it Friday.
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Tuesday’s appearance will be Crimo’s first in a Lake County courtroom since early August, when he entered a not guilty plea to 117 felony counts for the deaths of seven people and the wounding of dozens more at the July 4 parade.
Since that August appearance, Crimo turned 22, in late September at the Lake County jail where he is being held in lieu of bail.
Over the last two months, he has also been named in a dozen lawsuits that have been filed so far by parade shooting victims and their estates. The suits have targeted Crimo, his father and the manufacturer of the assault rifle officials say Crimo used to fire more than 80 rounds from a store roof into the crowd gathered in downtown Highland Park to watch the parade. The store where Crimo bought the rifle is also named.
After the shooting, Crimo was initially able to evade arrest by disguising himself as a woman and blending into the panicked crowd, police said. Within hours, though, police had identified him as a person of interest, and he was arrested later on July 4 after a North Chicago police officer spotted him in his car.
