A Cook County judge on Wednesday released a Rolling Meadows man on electronic monitoring while he awaits court proceedings after he was charged with reckless homicide for striking a car and killing a 14-year-old passenger in the West Ridge neighborhood last January.
Judge Ankur Srivastava denied the state’s petition to detain 25-year-old William Andrade pending trial and placed him on electronic monitoring with set hours of movement allowed for work. Andrade was arrested in West Ridge on Monday, authorities said..
Prosecutors claimed Andrade was behind the wheel of a 2013 Ford Fiesta that “blew through a stop sign” at the intersection of North Albany Avenue and West Rosemont Avenue around 12:16 a.m. on January 30. Andrade’s vehicle, traveling at a high rate of speed, struck a 2024 Acura with four people inside, two adults in the front and two teenagers in the back, according to assistant state’s attorney Mike Pekara.
Emergency services were called and Andrade stayed on scene, admitting to officers to driving, speeding and not stopping at the stop sign, Pekara said. Andrade had just left work shortly before the crash and was also going to give a coworker a ride home, Pekara said.
The driver of the Acura sustained a fractured rib and a leg injury, and the front seat passenger suffered a knee fracture. The injured 14-year-old boy in the rear seat, identified as Danial Dadako, was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston and then transferred to Lurie Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Feb. 2.
The accident scene was just four blocks from the teen’s West Ridge home.
Andrade’s defense attorney argued that their client did not need to be detained because he didn’t pose a risk to the community, specifically because he complied with officers on the scene after the crash and was cooperative even when officers arrested him on Monday. The attorney also pointed out that neither drugs nor alcohol were found in Andrade’s system, citing blood and urine samples.
Srivastava said the fatal crash was “unbelievably horrific,” but added that Andrade would live with this tragedy and should be allowed to continue contributing to society while under the court’s supervision. “Nothing is going to bring this child back,” Srivastava said.
The judge also barred Andrade from driving anywhere aside from work. He is scheduled to return to court on June 24.
