January 26, 2024

 JOLIET— Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announces that Circuit Judge Carmen Goodman today sentenced Darrius Brown, 42 of Plainfield, to nine years in prison for a 2018 attack on his then-girlfriend. Brown was sentenced to 9 years in prison for Aggravated Domestic Battery (a Class 2 felony), as well as 4 years for Aggravated Unlawful Restraint with a Deadly Weapon (a Class 3 felony), and 4 years for Unlawful Restraint (a Class 4 felony) to be served concurrently. 

On March 17, 2018, defendant Brown was at the Plainfield residence of Jamie Hollingsworth, the mother of one of Brown’s children. Hollingsworth was not present, and Brown was there with his girlfriend Elizabeth Balbuena. Brown, who according to Balbuena had been acting paranoid that day, became enraged after a phone call and threw a cell phone at her, splitting the skin on her shin area open. After throwing the phone, Brown grabbed the back of Balbuena’s hooded jacket as she tried to go down the stairs, causing it to choke her, while telling her she was not going anywhere. He proceeded to follow Balbuena around the house, telling her she wasn’t going anywhere without him. Brown then grabbed Balbuena with both arms and shook her, smashing her head and back into the door of the closet near the entry, leaving visible bruises. He then put his forearm across her neck, constraining her breathing. 

Brown stopped momentarily when Balbuena’s five-year-old son asked what he was doing. After the boy left the room, Brown grabbed a nearby hammer and wielded it as if he was going to strike her, while still holding her with his full body weight against the closet door. Brown then forced Bulbuena to drive him to his mother’s house in Chicago, with her son in the car. Once they arrived, Brown stole her cell phone and ran into his mother’s apartment. Balbuena followed Brown, trying to get her phone back, and Brown punched her in the eye. He also kicked and hit her, pushing her up against a wall and a table, again hitting her head on the wall. Then 

Brown, who was wearing Timberland boots, threw her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her about her body. At one point during the attack, Brown held himself up off the ground using the door frame to enable him to repeatedly stomp the victim with both feet. Bulbuena was treated at the emergency room for severe bruising over her entire body, a black eye, cuts on her face and shin, and dizziness. 

On the date of Brown’s attack on Balbuena, Hollingsworth was in the hospital for extensive injuries she sustained in a prolonged four-day attack by Brown that occurred from February 9 through 13, 2018. Brown was found guilty on October 8, 2020, of Aggravated Domestic Battery in that attack following a bench trial in front of Judge Goodman. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison. 

“Brown is a serial domestic abuser with a history of violent attacks against women, as shown by the fact that the mother of his child was in the hospital recovering from extensive injuries she suffered at Brown’s hands at the same time he attacked the victim here. He also violated no-contact conditions imposed by the Court more than fifty (50) times during the pendency of these two cases,” Glasgow said. “And the litany of offenses continues. His record also includes convictions for an attempted armed robbery in which he hit a woman in the face with a gun and broke her jaw, and arson in which he lit the car of the mother of another of his children on fire. Added to this, Brown was held in contempt of court in the current case after yelling profanity and sexual slurs at the judge, Assistant State’s Attorney, and Assistant Public Defender – all of whom are females. Brown is a gutless misogynist who preys upon defenseless women and no prison sentence is long enough to undue the savagery he perpetrated here.” 

The sentence will be served at 85 percent, with 4 years of mandatory supervised release. It will run concurrently with the 8-year sentence he currently is serving in the Hollingsworth case. He will receive 1429 days credit. 

Glasgow commended Assistant State’s Attorneys Katie Rabenda and Mark Flesznewski, Victim Witness Advocate Mallory Magee, Esther Borrego, former Victim Witness Advocate now with the Children’s Advocacy Center, Legal Secretary Traci Jasper, and IT Specialist Braulio Guzman for their work in this matter.