Alsip man pleads guilty to hate crime for pre-drag show vandalism at Lake in the Hills bakery
The man accused of vandalizing a Lake in the Hills bakery ahead of a planned family-friendly drag show pleaded guilty to a felony hate crime charge in McHenry County court Wednesday.
Prosecutors had charged Joseph Collins, 25, with a hate crime and criminal property damage and defacement after the July 2022 attack at UpRising Bakery and Cafe. The Alsip resident spray painted anti-LGBTQ+ epithets on the business and smashed three windows and a glass door with a bat, prosecutors said.
He man was sentenced to 180 days in McHenry County Jail, which could be shortened with good behavior, court records show. The sentence also includes 200 hours of community service and two years of probation.
Collins was not reachable by phone Thursday. After his release from jail, Collins will be required to obtain a mental health and anger management evaluation. He was ordered to pay $1,400 in fines and over $2,300 in restitution, according to court records.
Prosecutors dropped three charges for defacement and property damage in the plea deal they reached with Collins, including one felony count for causing $500 to $10,000 of damage, court records show.
After obtaining a warrant to search the red Ford Focus Collins left at the scene, officers found items bearing the “logo and indication” of the “Proud Boys” inside, according to a police report. The group is a “far-right, neo-fascist and exclusively male organization that promotes and engages in political violence,” the report said. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the Proud Boys a “hate group.”
The attack forced the bakery to lose thousands of dollars on repairs, event refunds and ruined ingredients, owner Corinna Sac, 32, told the Tribune on Thursday. Amid ongoing harassment targeting the business for its drag shows, alleged “safety concerns” prompted partners such as a farmers market to stop working with the bakery.
“It was devastating. Our whole life was that bakery. We gave everything we had to it as a family. All of our savings, all of our work together, collectively,” Sac said.
The financial losses caused by the attack ballooned to an estimated $48,000, she said. A GoFundMe seeking to save the bakery started by the Anti-Defamation League’s Midwest regional director, David Goldenberg, raised $49,700 in March.
But the harm was too much for the small business to handle. Ultimately, after Sac was told by prospective new landlords they would not rent to her, she decided to close the bakery in late May, she said. She and her husband have declared bankruptcy personally and through the business, she said.
The mother of two young children estimates it will take a decade for her to financially recover. The small restitution Collins is required to pay will be taken by creditors, she said.
“None of those people who did this to us are going to pay for anything for my children for the next year,” Sac said. “Me and my husband have to rebuild everything from the ground up ourselves, without credit.”
Sac wanted to go to court to look into the eyes of the man who vandalized her business and changed her life. She wondered if he had changed or showed any signs of remorse. However, she had to attend the Wednesday court session via Zoom because of an illness.
She read a victim’s statement to the court detailing the inclusive mission of the bakery she opened in 2017. After being harassed for two weeks in the days leading up to the scheduled drag show, she woke up to a call from police at 12:15 a.m. hours before the event was to start, she said.
“As we walked through the building with a police escort, I was shaking and crying, the sound of falling glass, our footsteps on the glass, is a sound that still haunts me and makes me uncomfortable,” she told the court.
One of her children won’t sleep or play outside alone now, she said. The other has been diagnosed with anxiety and an eating disorder caused by trauma, she added. Sac herself has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD, and many bakery staff members with similar struggles later left their jobs, she told the court.
Sac asked the judge to give Collins the minimum allowable jail time and maximum probation, requesting the judge consider the life the young man has ahead of him and compel him to complete psychiatric evaluations and diversity and inclusion trainings in an effort to change him.
“I do not wish to cause Mr. Collins hardship in his future, as he has caused me,” she said.
It didn’t bring her joy to watch him be handcuffed, she said. But it didn’t bring her sadness either, she added. She forgave him so that she can move on, she said.
In some ways, she thinks she can. But the long financial and emotional struggle will be difficult to surmount, she added.
Despite the losses, the owner of the now-closed bakery didn’t hesitate when asked if she stands by her decision to host drag events.
“Oh my god, yeah,” she said. “I wouldn’t change it for anything. If we were still open, we would still be doing it. That’s never been a question.”
Sac is now involved in advocating for and crafting legislation to outlaw “doxxing,” the practice of maliciously publishing information such as home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, she said. She hopes Collins’ sentence shows people won’t get away with similar attacks in the future, she added.
