Venezuelan immigrant accused of killing Loyola freshman Sheridan Gorman now faces federal gun charge
Chicago’s top federal prosecutor said he’s taking “no chances” that Sheridan Gorman’s alleged killer will be released, filing an illegal gun possession charge Thursday against the Venezuelan immigrant already charged with the murder of the Loyola University Chicago freshman.
No federal court date has been scheduled for Jose Medina, 25, who was ordered detained Friday by a state court judge in connection with Gorman’s slaying. Medina’s attorney actually asked Cook County Circuit Court Judge D’Anthony Thedford to hold Medina in jail so he won’t be deported.
Now the feds have charged Medina with possessing a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol while being unlawfully present in the United States, a charge carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
“Given the senseless, cold-blooded nature of the murder of a young student with a bright future ahead of her, the Chicago U.S. attorney’s office will take no chances that this illegal alien perpetrator will be released back into our community,” U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros said in a statement.
An eight-page complaint alleges Chicago police found the gun in a Sheridan Road residence that was searched after video captured “a male in black clothing, wearing a black mask, walking with a distinct limp and slow gait” entering shortly after the March 19 shooting.
Witnesses described the shooter similarly.
An ATF special agent at the Crime Gun Intelligence Center in Chicago wrote that the gun turned out to be a high-probability match for the one used in Gorman’s slaying.
The federal complaint lays out how Medina was born in Venezuela and has “no lawful status in the United States.” It says a Border Patrol agent “encountered” Medina in the El Paso border sector on May 9, 2023. Medina was allegedly unable to provide a valid U.S. address but said he planned to reside in New Rochelle, New York.
Medina was released on his own recognizance on May 24, 2023, and was scheduled to appear for a hearing before an immigration judge in New York on Oct. 13, 2023, according to the complaint.
However, it says there “is no indication of any record of any further immigration related proceedings or adjustments in status.”
Gorman’s killing reignited the national debate over immigration and even drew the attention of President Donald Trump. Medina is accused of hiding at the end of a pier near Tobey Prinz Beach and shooting the 18-year-old Gorman in the back as she and her friends ran for cover.
Cook County Assistant Public Defender Julie Koehler has said that Medina has a developmental disability stemming from an earlier gunshot wound he suffered to his head during a robbery in Colombia. Medina had made his way to that country after fleeing violence in Venezuela, Koehler said.
He had to relearn how to walk and talk, and he has an indentation on the top of his head. He can’t read or write, Koehler said.
Medina wound up in Chicago in 2023 after reaching the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and being detained there, according to Koehler. Although he asked to be deported back to Colombia, officials in Texas purportedly bused him to Chicago.
With no family here, Medina stayed in a migrant shelter and contracted tuberculosis that went undiagnosed, his attorney said. His mother eventually joined him here, and he was staying with her at an apartment building a block from where Gorman was killed.
Gorman’s family has said they “understand” the instinct for compassion.
“Every life has a story,” they said in a statement last week. “But we cannot lose sight of the simple, devastating truth at the center of all of this: Sheridan had a life too. There is a difference between understanding a life and excusing a loss.”
Contributing: David Struett, Sophie Sherry