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PORTAGE PARK — Domestic violence advocates and elected officials are calling for a Cook County judge to be reassigned after he declined to jail two men who went on to commit two fatal stabbings — including one who allegedly killed his wife Tuesday.
Constantin Beldie, 57, is accused of fatally stabbing his wife Tuesday in Portage Park. Beldie was already facing charges for aggravated battery and kidnapping his wife in his car last month, according to court records.
He was served an emergency order of protection in the case, but Judge Thomas E. Nowinski denied a request by prosecutors to detain him before his trial, letting him go on GPS monitoring and ordering that he stay away from the woman’s home and work, records show.
Around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Beldie fatally stabbed 54-year-old Lacramioara Beldie in the 5600 block of West Leland Avenue, authorities said. An off-duty Chicago police detective who witnessed the stabbing and tried to intervene suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound during the incident. Police did not say who fired the bullet that struck the officer.
Beldie was found dead hours later in a car a block away, according to police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Beldie’s wife also sought an order of protection against him in January, according to court records. She alleged her husband had “been physically and emotionally” abusive throughout their long relationship and would often make death threats, including “I can kill you now and put you in a bag and take you to the lake” and “You know how easy it is to kill someone?” according to the Sun-Times.
It’s the second high-profile case this year where Nowinski ruled leniently on alleged serial abusers — despite women saying they feared for their lives.
In February, Nowinski denied an emergency order of protection against Crosetti Brand, 37, who was accused by a former partner of sending her threatening messages and showing up at her home after being released from prison on a separate domestic violence conviction, according to the Sun-Times.
Nowinski said the protective order was not an emergency since Brand was back in custody for violating his parole, and set a new hearing in the protective order case for March 13.
But Brand, back out on parole by late February, allegedly came to the pregnant woman’s home March 13 and attacked her, fatally stabbing her son, 11-year-old Jayden Perkins, a heralded local dance prodigy.
Brand has since been charged in Perkins’ killing.
Amanda Pyron, president of The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence, called for Nowinski to be reassigned from the domestic violence division and to no longer preside over any domestic violence cases.
“Judge Nowinski’s failure to protect the community has now resulted in two tragic, preventable murders,” Pyron said in a statement. “When survivors go to the courts for protection, that protection must be effective. Judge Nowinski has failed in that duty, and allowing him to continue to hear domestic violence cases sends the wrong message to survivors across Chicagoland.”
The pretrial division should also “review procedures” for domestic violence screenings after “the failure to provide correct information in this case proved lethal,” Pyron said.
Beldie was considered a “medium-low risk” with prior treatment for domestic violence issues “unknown” on a screening Nowinski reviewed in his decision for releasing him on GPS monitoring, according to court documents. Beldie appeared to have no prior felony record beyond active charges for the attack last month.
A representative for the Circuit Court of Cook County, Nowinski’s employer, did not return a request for comment.
Multiple protective order studies have found that the violation rate is around 40-50 percent, according to a fact sheet published by the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center.
The decision to release Brand led the Illinois Prisoner Review Board chair and the board member who conducted his parole hearing to resign after the Perkins’ murder, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the “correct decision.”
“The Prisoner Review Board must be able to operate independently as they review enormously difficult cases,” Pritzker said in a March 25 statement. “It is clear that evidence in this case was not given the careful consideration that victims of domestic violence deserve and I am committed to ensuring additional safeguards and training are in place to prevent tragedies like this from happening again.”
State Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, a Northwest Side Democrat, called the warning signs laid out in the orders of protection involving Beldie “jarring,” she said in a Tuesday night social media post.
“She knew she was at extreme risk, she reported it in multiple orders of protection, and the system failed her,” LaPointe wrote. “This is a tragic, traumatic and preventable event. We must take orders of protection seriously. We must hold perpetrators of domestic violence accountable. We must make better detention decisions. We must create real safety mechanisms and real choice for domestic violence survivors.”
In a Wednesday social media post, Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza wrote Nowinski “should not be on the bench.”
“Two victims are now dead in two separate cases as a result of the refusal of one man, Judge Thomas E. Nowinski, to keep dangerous criminals off the street. Both of these murders were preventable if not for this incompetent judge. Unforgivable. He should not be on the bench,” she said.
Nowinski was rated qualified or recommended by a full slate of bar associations when he successfully ran for the bench in 2022, according to Injustice Watch.
He’s had a long legal career that began in 2004 as an assistant in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and is a former chief of staff for Iris Martinez, clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
“When a litigant is in court, that is the most important thing in that person’s life at that moment,” Nowinski told Injustice Watch. “As a judge, I know that I can help rebuild the faith and trust in the justice system through my actions and decisions by treating all with respect and fairness.”
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