A Vernon Hills man convicted in June of second-degree murder and other charges in the 2021 shooting death of a Zion man in a Gurnee Mills parking lot has been sentenced to 32 years in prison.
Joey Gonzalez, 27, also was convicted of aggravated battery with a firearm, three counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and one count of unlawful use of a weapon, all felonies. He was sentenced Friday.
On Nov. 27, 2021, Gurnee police were called to a report of shots fired at the Gurnee Mills parking lot. Officers found Zion resident Jonathan Denicolas, 26, being aided by a passerby. Denicolas later died of his injuries.
Authorities discovered through phone records, eyewitnesses and surveillance video that Denicolas had arranged to meet with Gonzalez the day of the shooting, according to a press release.
Gonzalez was taken into custody in August 2022 by the U.S. Marshals Service Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force.
At his trial, Gonzalez claimed self-defense, though there was no evidence of Denicolas shooting at Gonzalez and no weapons were recovered from the area, according to Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart’s office.
Reinhart in a press release Monday said prosecutors “won a tough case.”
At the sentencing hearing, Judge D. Christopher Lombardo considered evidence under aggravating circumstances after witnesses testified to two separate gun situations Gonzalez was involved in following the shooting, as well as a victim-impact statement written by Denicolas’ mother and read in open court, according to Rinehart.
Prosecutors argued Gonzalez opening fire in the parking lot during one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year and his lengthy criminal history showed he was a danger to the community.
Sentencing laws allowed Lombardo to sentence Gonzalez from 10 to 45 years in prison with 85% required to be served.
Before the trial, Gonzalez was being held in the Lake County jail on a $10 million bond. That was set in 2022 before the effective date of bail reform which now prevents individuals charged with second-degree murder and firearm offenses from posting bond if a judge so decides at the start of the case, Rinehart said.
The bond was revoked and Gonzalez received 792 days credit of time served.