Former heavyweight boxer charged with beating 2 men at bars on Far South Side
Phillip Triantafillo | Chicago police arrest photo
CHICAGO - A former heavyweight boxer faces aggravated battery charges after badly beating two men at Far South Side bars within a week of Christmas, prosecutors say.
Phillip Triantafillo, 33, allegedly accused a retired police officer of sleeping with his girlfriend before pummeling him off a stool and onto a radiator at a bar in Hegewisch, Cook County prosecutors said in a bond proffer read at court Sunday.
The retired officer suffered a fractured jaw and misaligned teeth in the Dec. 21 incident in the 13500 block of South Brandon Avenue, prosecutors said. Triantafillo left, but witnesses at the bar identified him to police, prosecutors said.
In another brawl, Triantafillo allegedly beat a 49-year-old man unconscious on Dec. 26, sending him to a hospital for heavy brain bleeding and a fractured skull, police and prosecutors said.
On Dec. 26, Triantafillo drove up to someone he knew outside of Old Time Tap in the 3200 block of East 135th Street and began arguing with him, prosecutors said.
Surveillance video shows the man trying to calm down Triantafillo before Triantafillo strikes him down onto a sidewalk and turns him on his side, prosecutors said. It was unclear what sparked the confrontation.
A witness exited the bar and spoke to Triantafillo before he left in his truck, prosecutors said. The witness took down Triantafillo’s license plate and called police.
The man on the sidewalk was taken to a hospital and underwent surgery and was given at least 30 staples for a fractured skull, prosecutors said. He remains hospitalized in an intensive care unit.
Triantafillo was arrested Saturday in the 13400 block of South Mackinaw Avenue and charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery, police and prosecutors said.
A Cook County judge ordered him held on a $500,000 bail, and scheduled him to appear in court again Jan. 3, according to court records.
Triantafillo, a former heavyweight boxer, lives in Hegewisch and has a criminal history including an aggravated battery conviction from 2008, in which he was ordered 2 years of probation, prosecutors said.