Man Sexually Assaults Man With Tree Branch

Cortez Foster, a 45-year-old homeless man who was paroled in May on a 20-year sentence for a 2001 armed robbery conviction, was arrested on March 27 for beating and sodomizing a man with a tree branch in Chicago's Grant Park.

Cortez Foster is accused of beating the 65-year-old victim so bad late Friday, he remains intubated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with severe head trauma, eye and nose fractures and brain swelling, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Morgan Creppel said. Doctors had to remove the tree branch, 7 inches long, 1/2 inch in diameter, from the victim’s rectum, Creppel said. The two men did not know each other but they were “interacting” before the beating in the 800 block of South Michigan Avenue, Creppel said. At some point, Foster, 45, became enraged and started punching the elderly man in the head and face, Creppel said. Foster, who lives at the Pacific Garden Mission, continued to punch the victim when he fell to the ground, kicking him multiple times in the head and body, Creppel said. After attacking him with a tree branch, Foster ran away with the then unconscious man’s cell phone, which he sold to a friend, Creppel said. The victim, wearing only a sock and shirt, was later spotted propping himself up on a concrete railing on Balbo early Saturday. The man couldn’t speak and was bleeding from his head, mouth and nose, Creppel said. He had to be fingerprinted in order for detectives to identify him. Investigators were able to track Foster down at the Pacific Garden Mission after they located the victim’s cell phone, Creppel said. Foster allegedly admitted the blood on his clothes was from the victim, admitted to the vicious attack and said he “used” the tree branch.
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Cortez faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted because he's already been found guilty of two Class X crimes, including a 1991 aggravated criminal sexual assault and armed robbery for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.