Chicago Area Local News

MARKHAM, Ill. (Sun-Times Media Wire) ― Bail was set at $75,000 Saturday morning for the Park Forest teen prosecutors painted as the main aggressor in the brutal beating of another teen caught on cell-phone video this week.

Sarah Kraft is charged as an adult with one count of aggravated battery in the attack. Facing the same charge is Marcelena Castillo, 17, of Steger.

Her attorney, Carl Evans, argued before Judge Edie Daniels at the Markham Courthouse this morning that Castillo was much less involved in the attack and should get a lower bond. Daniels agreed, setting bail for Castillo at $25,000.

Authorities are also looking for a third girl, a juvenile, who burned the victim, 17-year-old Mercedes Michaels, of South Chicago Heights, with a cigarette lighter during the beating.

Michaels did not attend the other teens' court hearing the morning because she wasn't feeling well, said her mother, Cathy Mendez.

Prosecutors did not offer a motive for the attack during court today, but Mendez said it started when her daughter borrowed Kraft's car. The car ran out of gas while Michaels had it, and ended up getting impounded.

But Mendez said her daughter had offered to reimburse Kraft, but then it appeared a conflict over a boy ensued.

"This is senseless," Mendez said.

Michaels and Castillo both attend Bloom Trail High School in Chicago Heights. Kraft, whose mother died in 2006, lives with another family and attends Crete-Monee High School. Friends and family of both girls were in court today, though they declined comment, as did Evans and Kraft's attorney, Jay O'Brien.

The videotape of the beating, posted Friday on the Web site of WFLD-TV (Channel 32) News, begins with one teenage girl pinning and pummeling another in the dirt in a Sauk Village public park.

But within the space of about two minutes, other girls join the attack, cutting off the victim's long dark hair with scissors and burning her scalp with a cigarette lighter.

And the daylight beating June 2 is all caught on a video camera phone.

"You're burning my head!" Michaels can be heard shrieking, unable to move.

She suffered a concussion, bruising, abrasions and several burns, and she spent the evening in a hospital, Sauk Village police Detective Robert Grossman said. Mendez said her daughter had to return to the hospital later in the week after suffering from headaches and having a reaction to the medicine doctors gave her.

In an on-camera interview with WFLD News, Michaels showed how her face had been branded with a cigarette lighter.

"These scars are going to be on my face for the rest of my life," she said.

Grossman said both Castillo and Kraft have given statements to investigators, and said they "traveled in the same circles" with Michaels.

Kraft and Castillo lured Michaels to the park under false pretenses, Grossman said. Kraft then jumped on top of Michaels and began punching her.

"Our victim wasn't showing up to fight anybody," Grossman said. "Our victim thought she was showing up for other reasons."

Grossman said police received the video from the victim's mother, but he wasn't certain how she got it.

At one point in the video, as the victim's hair lies in the dirt, the person making the video is heard to say, "That's bogus as hell." Even after the victim is beaten, burned and has her hair cut off, the beating continues.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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