CHICAGO (AP) - A purported suburban Chicago mobster has been released from jail where he’d been awaiting trial on gun charges because he’s terminally ill with prostate cancer.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a federal judge ordered Charles Russell’s release last month, saying he’d been held in home detention. A defense lawyer told the court that the cancer had spread throughout Russell’s body.
The 68-year-old Russell, whose nickname is “Chucky,” was arrested around Christmas in 2016 and accused of illegally receiving guns in a robbery scheme.
The federal criminal complaint says Russell bragged about threatening people with a blow-torch. The Schaumburg man once served a stint in prison for murder. Court documents say a wiretap recorded Russell as saying he was a mobster.
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