Champaign teen gets 8 years for baseball-bat mugging – Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

URBANA — A Champaign teen cried and screamed Monday when a judge sentenced her to eight years in prison for her role in the baseball-bat mugging of another woman more than two years ago.

A Champaign County jury in December convicted Shatyra Hawkins, 19, who listed an address in the 1500 block of North Mattis Avenue, of attempted armed robbery and aggravated battery but acquitted her of armed robbery.

Judge Tom Difanis sentenced her to eight years for attempted armed robbery and five years for aggravated battery, to be served at the same time.

The charges stemmed from a Nov. 12, 2014, attack on Ashley Moody, 27, after she left a gas station at Prospect and Bradley avenues in Champaign.

Moments after leaving the Circle K, where she had withdrawn money from an ATM, Moody was confronted on Willis Street by three women who had been in the station at the same time. One of the women had a baseball bat and hit her in the head with it, opening her skull.

Moody identified Hawkins as the woman who reached into her coat pocket, apparently trying to find cash that Moody had secreted away in the pocket of one of three pairs of pants she was wearing.

Moody testified that she was hit in the head multiple times with the bat and kicked. The trio ran off when they saw that she was bleeding and couldn’t find money on her.

Champaign police were led to them later that evening and found co-defendant Brittany Esters, 21, carrying a knife and a Taser and found the bat at the home of the other co-defendant, Leondra Hopkins, 19.

Esters pleaded guilty in 2015 to aggravated battery and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Hopkins pleaded guilty as a juvenile to armed robbery and was sentenced in early 2015 to juvenile prison. Evidence showed that she wielded the baseball bat that injured Moody.

Hopkins has since been released from juvenile prison and was charged with another robbery and aggravated battery that allegedly occurred in July. However, she failed to appear in court and is currently wanted for that crime.

Hawkins was also charged as a juvenile, but because of the severity of the crime, the state sought to prosecute her as an adult. Despite the specter of stiffer penalties as an adult, Hawkins agreed to a transfer to adult court against the advice of at least two attorneys, including one appointed by a judge specifically to investigate the case and act on Hawkins’ behalf.

Hawkins went through five attorneys before being represented by Chicago attorney Scott Kamin, who defended her in the December jury trial.

Kamin asked the judge to consider probation while Assistant State’s Attorney Tim Sullivan asked for a 10-year prison sentence.

When Difanis asked Hawkins if she had anything to say before he sentenced her, her only words were, ironically: “I was a juvenile.”

Difanis noted that the evidence showed that it was Hawkins who planned the robbery. She had no prior convictions.

In addition to prison, Difanis ordered that Hawkins pay a third of the little more than $1,000 in expenses that Moody incurred as a result of the attack.

In a letter to the judge, Moody said the incident left her scarred both mentally and physically. She said she still has problems hearing out of the ear that was hit by the bat.

“I still have not been able to attend any of my son’s baseball games due to the pound of the bats,” she said.