The alleged ringleader in the racially charged beating of a teen with mental disabilities last year was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to a hate crime.

The case drew national outrage when the attackers livestreamed video of the brutal assault on Facebook. Cook County prosecutors have said the victim, who knew his attacker from high school in Aurora, has schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Jordan Hill, 20, of Carpentersville, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated kidnapping in addition to the hate crime, becoming the third of four defendants to admit wrongdoing. In March he had rejected a similar plea deal calling for the eight-year prison term.

An attorney for the remaining defendant, Tesfaye Cooper, 20, indicated in court Thursday his client is considering a plea deal as well.

Sisters Brittany and Tanishia Covington already pleaded guilty.

The gruesome video drew condemnation, including from then-President Barack Obama. Right-wing pundits used it as a rallying cry, tying it without evidence to the Black Lives Matter movement and blaming permissive policing.

Prosecutors painted Hill as the instigator of the attack in January 2017, saying he was friends with the 18-year-old victim and led him to an apartment on Chicago’s West Side.

Chicago Police Department Jordan Hill of Carpentersville, is charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Jordan Hill of Carpentersville, is charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. (Chicago Police Department) (Chicago Police Department)

In video posted to Facebook, the teen is seen bound and gagged in a corner while Hill and Cooper cut his clothes, hair and scalp with a knife. They also made “derogatory comments” about then-President-elect Donald Trump and the victim’s ethnicity, Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier said

Hill communicated with the victim’s family via Facebook and demanded $300 for his return, Lanier said. The teen was able to flee the building when the defendants left the apartment to confront neighbors who had complained about noise, prosecutors have said.

Before imposing sentence, Judge William Hooks delivered a lengthy lecture from the bench about the crime’s racial aspect.

“I surmise you believe you have some pride in being an African-American, is that fair to say?” Hooks asked Hill from the bench.

“I’m proud to be black,” Hill answered quietly.

Hooks, who is African-American, then pointed out the portraits of civil rights heroes including Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass, displayed in his courtroom in the Leighton Criminal Court Building. Hill admitted he did not know any of their identities.

“Every time you take an act like this particular terrible act against this young man who couldn’t defend himself, you spit on the graves of all these folks that surround you in this courtroom,” the judge said.

Tanishia Covington, 25, who resided in the apartment where the incident took place, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty in April. With credit for time already served, she was placed on parole last week, records show.

Brittany Covington, 20, was earlier sentenced to four years of probation that included a ban on using social media. But she was taken back into custody in April after software on her phone found that Facebook had been accessed from her device on three different days in March.

On Thursday, Covington’s attorney, April Preyar, alleged that it was the mother of Covington’s boyfriend who used Facebook on her phone when Covington let her borrow it.

Hooks seemed skeptical.

“If your liberty interest depends on whether you’re on Facebook or not … it makes no sense at all that you would then take your cellphone and hand it to somebody,” he said.

Hooks held off on deciding if Covington had violated her probation, since the boyfriend’s mother was unable to attend the court hearing. Covington will likely remain in jail until that hearing on Aug. 7.

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @crepeau

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