Robert Crimo Jr. got off light.
He was sentenced to 60 days in jail, two years of probation and 100 hours of community service for signing the gun ownership application that allowed his disturbed teenage son to purchase an assault rifle — the gun the younger man is accused of using to slaughter seven people and wound 48 others at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade massacre in 2022.
That’s about one day for every casualty.
A decent person would be grateful, humbled, remorseful at that sentence. But then a decent person wouldn’t help his clearly troubled son buy an assault rifle.
The sort of person the elder Crimo is was on full display Wednesday when he showed up for his jail time wearing a T-shirt with the words “I’m a political pawn” printed on the front and “LAWS, FACTS, REALITY” on the back.
Let’s talk about laws. The law would allow Lake County Judge George Strickland to declare Crimo in contempt of court, void his plea agreement, haul him back into court and send him to trial. There’s plenty of precedent for that, such as when a federal judge — irked by a photo of Ed Vrdolyak on the front page of the Sun-Times, smirking after receiving probation in 2010 for a real estate kickback scheme — dismissed his probation as “a slap on the wrist” and re-sentenced him to 10 months in federal prison.
Let’s talk about facts. Whenever former Gov. Rod Blagojevich complains about the eight years he spent in federal prison for corruption, the fact is, he’d probably have done less time if only he weren’t so vain and stupid as to not realize he’d done something wrong. Justice demands contrition.
Let’s talk about reality. For Crimo to show up the way he did, pretending he is a victim, rather than the people whom his son — allegedly, for now — murdered and wounded, with a big helping hand from dad, is obscene. At the very least, Crimo should have to serve his full, paltry two-month sentence. Whatever good behavior is, this grotesque display is the opposite.
There is one upside. Seeing Crimo in that T-shirt helps a bewildered, grieving public start to understand how his son could be so callous as to commit the kind of crimes he is accused of committing. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
