On Tuesday, a Chicago man with a strong criminal history was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for kidnapping three motorists at gunpoint while on pretrial release in 2021, including an Uber driver whom he raped.
A jury found Andrew Anania, 29, guilty of all other counts in January after he pleaded guilty to some crimes last Halloween. The accusations included kidnapping, carjacking, and using a firearm during a violent crime.
Prosecutors requested US District Judge Edmond Chang to sentence Anania to life in prison, followed by seven years. Chang settled on a total sentence of 600 months.
Background
Anania was charged in 2014 with murdering a 16-year-old rival gang member, but he eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. According to records, his ten-year sentence was reduced by half due to good behavior, with the remainder offset by the time he spent in jail awaiting trial.
In 2019, while on parole for that crime, Chicago police allegedly apprehended him with a handgun in Little Village. The United States Attorney’s Office filed a federal lawsuit, and Anania remained in detention until a federal judge released him to await trial in the fall of 2020.
According to federal court transcripts, an assistant US attorney fought strongly against the defense’s efforts to release Anania because of COVID concerns at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown.
“The community would be at heightened vulnerability if Mr. Anania were released,” a federal prosecutor told Judge Sharon Coleman during a September 2020 hearing. He noted that a prior federal judge found no restrictions that could fairly ensure the public’s safety if Anania was released.
To refute the claim that Anania’s diseases forced him to walk with a cane, the prosecutor said CPD body-worn camera footage shows Anania “sprinted down for two blocks” when officers chased him in the weapons case.
Judge Coleman signed an arrest warrant for Anania on February 2, 2021, for violating his release terms, according to records. According to prosecutors, he began committing the heinous crimes that have landed him in prison only two weeks later.
Kidnappings, carjackings, and rape
The first of Anania’s three victims escaped immediately after he kidnapped her outside her Garfield Ridge home. Prosecutors say she remote-started her minivan on February 17, 2021, and Anania confronted her with a revolver as she approached the car shortly later.
He forced her into the van at gunpoint, told her to drive, and began caressing her intimate parts through her clothing, according to prosecutors. Anania informed her that he was going to force her to do a sex act, and he ordered her out so he could take the wheel.
At that point, the woman realized Anania was holding a carton of smokes rather than a pistol, so she screamed for help and fled home, according to officials.
Anania drove off in her minivan, which she crashed and abandoned.
On March 8, 2021, Anania went to a burrito restaurant in suburban Darien and persuaded an employee to call an Uber for him. A woman who did ridesharing part-time arrived in an SUV.
Shortly after the ride began, Anania leaned between the front seats, tapped the woman on the shoulder, and displayed a revolver.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Anania said, instructing her to switch off her Uber app. “You will do everything I instruct you to do.” You are going to drive me to the Ogilvie train station.”
As they drove along Interstate 55, Anania demanded the woman’s pocketbook, which he rifled through. After inspecting her identification, he began addressing the woman by name and warning her that he knew where she lived.
According to prosecutors, he stepped into the front seat and began groping her private parts before pulling down his pants and ordering her to perform a sex act while driving.
When the woman insisted on keeping both hands on the wheel while driving, Anania forced her to exit the expressway and drive into an alley behind the 7400 block of West 56th Street in Summit.
Anania again commanded the lady to perform sex acts before sexually assaulting her in the back car while wielding a gun, according to authorities. According to prosecutors, Anania then compelled the woman to drive him to Chicago while warning her that Latin Kings was a member of the rival Two-Six gang.
In actuality, Anania is a Latin King with tattoos connecting him to the gang. Prosecutors think Anania used the alias Two-Six to conceal his identity.
After grabbing $6 from the woman’s glove compartment, Anania exited. The victim sought treatment at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Two days later, on March 10, 2021, Anania went after the third victim in Cicero.
Around 3:44 a.m., a woman remote-started her Chevy Blazer before walking out of her house to climb into it. Anania and her accomplice, Walter Moran, promptly confronted her, according to prosecutors.
Anania instructed her to slide over to the passenger seat and hand Moran her handbag and watch. He climbed behind the wheel, and Moran took the back seat.
They took her all the way to the junction of Washtenaw and 23rd Place in Little Village, where two people opened fire on the SUV. Prosecutors say Moran returned fire from the back seat.
Anania allegedly ordered the woman to stop weeping, or he would shoot her.
He drove her to a woodland preserve in Hodgkins Village, then back to the place where he had assaulted her two nights before, and finally back onto the inbound Stevenson Expressway, according to authorities.
The men eventually released the woman near the 4700 block of South Harlem and drove off in her SUV.
During Anania’s trial, the woman testified that she knew the rifle Anania possessed that day was genuine because she works in quality control at a firearm component factory and observed portions of the weapon that matched the parts she inspects on a daily basis.
Hours later, police discovered the woman’s car, but Anania drove away and eventually fled on foot.
That night, he had a series of Facebook conversations about selling the firearm he used to kidnap the third victim, according to authorities.
According to prosecutors, over the next three days, Anania “conducted extensive research” on a witness who witnessed the kidnapping and sexual assault on March 8.
According to the memo, he Googled the victim’s name, visited her LinkedIn profile, accessed her public records, checked her Instagram and Facebook accounts, looked into her home location, researched her boyfriend, and found her sister.
Anania had an unknown individual make a Facebook friend request to the rape victim, who subsequently sent him screenshots of the victim’s family members’ Facebook accounts.
He gathered facts and made handwritten notes about the victim, her family, and her workplace.
As U.S. Marshals waited outside his building to arrest him, Anania photographed the notes with his phone. He then went outside and surrendered to law officers.
On April 23, Judge Chang sentenced Moran to 188 months—or 15.67 years.
