$1 Million Bail for Bucktown Beating Girlfriend

Doctors not certain if victim Natasha McShane will ever speak or walk again

The girlfriend of a man accused of beating two young women unconscious with a baseball bat in Bucktown last week was ordered held on $1 million bond Thursday after prosecutors said she was "just as culpable and as guilty for every whack of the bat."

And according to at least one report, she also smoked a marijuana-laced cigar while her boyfriend attacked the women.

Marcy Cruz, 25, told her boyfriend, co-defendant Heriberto Viramontes, to "look at all those drunk a------- coming out of the bar" moments before Viramontes attacked Natasha McShane and Stacy Jurich, Asst. Cook County State’s Atty. Erin Antonietti said in court.

Cruz pointed out the potential victims in the early hours of Friday after Viramontes told her he needed "quick money and drugs," Antonietti said.

Moments later he jumped from her van, attacked the women as they walked home from a night out, then sped off with Cruz in the van.

Cruz told police that before the attack she "smoked a blunt" in the van, Antonietti said. Prosecutors say she was smoking while the attack occured, according to the Tribune.

Afterward, she took perfume and make-up from the victims' purses and was filmed using the victims' credit cards at a nearby gas station, Antonietti added, urging Judge Donald Panarese to deny Cruz bail.

Cruz and Viramontes were tracked down using records from the credit cards and cell phones stolen in the attack and arrested Monday evening.

Jurich needed 15 staples to the outside of her head and McShane remains in a drug-induced coma, the prosecutor said.

Doctors "don’t know if she will ever walk or speak again," Antonietti said.

The victims "could not have been attacked" without Cruz’s assistance, she said, saying Cruz was "as culpable and as guilty for every whack of the bat as defendant Viramontes."

Asst. Public Defender Lee Carson said there was no evidence that Cruz knew what Viramontes was going to do. Her alleged involvement was "all after the fact," he said.

But Antonietti said Cruz "was aware of the co-defendant’s plans."

Viramontes was denied bond on Wednesday after Judge Adam Bourgeois said there was “no condition or set of conditions that I can impose that can protect the community from this individual.’’

Copyright CHIST - SunTimes
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