10 YEARS IN CASE THAT LED TO TRAGEDY
Man pleads guilty in shooting that was interrupted by corrections officer
A man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in a 2015 River West shooting that involved a now- deceased Cook County correctional officer.
Mario “Booty” Orta changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday, court records show. Orta was charged with attempted firstdegree murder, two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a weapon by a gang member.
Authorities said Orta was one of three men involved in a shooting outside the now shuddered Funky Buddha Lounge in the 700 block of West Grand.
The Sun- Times was the first to report that the shooting, though nonfatal, eventually led to the heroin- related death of Cook County correctional officer Michael Raines.
According to police records, on Nov. 30, 2014, Raines and his girlfriend left Richard’s around 3 a. m. Before they walked to their car, they heard gunfire. Raines had his Ruger LCP .380 semiautomatic pistol in his back pocket and ran toward the shooting.
A few minutes before, two men the police say were part of a street gang — Orta and Fernando “Fern” Lopez, both 27— had left the Funky Buddha, just around the corner from Richard’s on Grand Avenue, with friends, according to police records.
After leaving the club, Lopez, Orta and a third man got into a Buick LaCrosse just outside and began to head west on Grand. But after sideswiping two vehicles, including a BMW parked outside the bar, Lopez tried to keep going, according to police. A crowd outside the Funky Buddha — which closed in 2015 — surrounded the Buick, trying to keep it from driving off, according to police records.
The three got out of the Buick. Lopez and the unknown man fired a handgun into the air and at people on the street to disperse the crowd, according to police records. Raines heard the gunshots and ran around the corner.
Drawing his Ruger and identifying himself as a police officer, Raines ordered Lopez to drop the gun, the detectives wrote. Instead, they said, Lopez turned toward him, and Raines shot him.
Wounded, Lopez dropped the weapon and ran to the sidewalk on the north side of Grand. Raines, out of ammunition, ran after and quickly caught him, the police said.
Orta — who had 31 prior arrests and two convictions, for mob action and for aggravated battery to a police officer — picked up Lopez’s gun as the 6- foot, 245- pound Raines tried to hold Lopez on the ground until cops arrived, the detectives wrote.
They said Raines pointed his now- empty gun at Orta, ordering him to drop his gun, and used Lopez as a human shield.
The detectives said Orta shot at Raines several times as he and Lopez were on the sidewalk. Raines wasn’t hit, but Lopez ended up with 10 gunshot wounds. Raines’ gun held only six rounds, and he didn’t bring extra ammunition.
Orta initially pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail. Records show that he changed his plea to guilty on Monday.
Lopez is free after being released to a pretrial services monitoring program. About a year after the shooting, he filed a federal lawsuit against Raines’ estate and the sheriff’s office. That case has been delayed pending the outcome of his criminal proceedings. His next court date is set for Aug. 9.
The third man, Nathaniel Nunes, then 22, was later charged in the shooting. He was arrested on March 16, 2015, in Humboldt Park, about a mile from Raines’ home in Ukrainian Village, records show. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
An internal Cook County sheriff’s investigation cleared Raines, who had worked at the Cook County Jail for three years, of any wrongdoing.
The sheriff’s office interviewed the lead detective who investigated the shooting, and he commended Raines for heroism.
Raines was reprimanded, though, for using “a handgun that he had not qualified with through the Cook County Sheriff’s Training Institute.”
However, after the shooting, Raines developed “emotional issues,” his parents told detectives after his death. During his struggle on the ground with Lopez, he’d also aggravated an old back injury suffered years earlier in a car crash, according to a source who said that, during his recovery, Raines was prescribed painkillers. When he couldn’t get a prescription refilled, he turned to heroin, a source previously told the Sun- Times.
In early September 2015, Raines checked himself into the rehab facility at St. Joseph.
On Oct. 8, 2015, at 11 a. m., he was discharged. At 12: 24 p. m., he got on a southbound No. 53 Pulaski Road bus at Chicago Avenue, according to CTA security footage reviewed by police. Less than an hour later, he would be found dead on a CTA bus in Little Village.
The medical examiner’s office ruled he died of a fentanyllaced heroin overdose.