Crime & Safety
Joliet Man Charged With Miley Cyrus Gang Bar Beating Smacked With Lawsuit
The supposed Miley Cyrus Boy was sued by a man he allegedly punched in an unrelated barroom attack.
The GoFundMe page set up for one of the four men charged with the Miley Cyrus Gang bar beating has already pulled in a whole $375, which is lucky for him now that he's been hit with a $50,000 lawsuit for allegedly attacking a man in a different bar last year.
The subject of the lawsuit, 27-ear-old Ryan Elliott, already faces felony aggravated battery charges in connection with the alleged June 2013 incident at the Essington Road bar On the Rocks.
According to the lawsuit, Joliet resident James Lanham was minding his own business at On the Rocks when Elliott "struck and injured (him) without provocation and with evil intent, and in order to amuse himself."
"Elliott is a person who is violent when intoxicated, and who regularly engages in acts of violence against others, and who intentionally harms others as a means of personal enjoyment and amusement," said the civil complaint, which also named On the Rocks as a defendant.
Elliott was arrested after the incident but prosecutors chose not to pursue the case. But after Elliott and a few of his buddies were arrested last month for another alleged tavern attack—and Patch launched the story into the national spotlight—the state's attorney's office had a change of heart.
The May incident allegedly involved Elliott and his friends Robert Krapil, 27, Daniel Lahey, 26, and Jason Palacios, 27. The four friends walked into the North Hickory Street bar Lety's Place and "started talking about Miley Cyrus," police said, and then turned violent.
One man who was in the bar that night, Donny Rice of Joliet, detailed the so-called Miley Cyrus Gang's alleged villainy in a video featured on Patch. Rice told how the gang subjected a bar patron to racial slurs and ordered him to "go over and sit over at the other end of the bar with all of the other Mexicans." Rice said the gang then began beating the Hispanic man and his girlfriend.
Rice said the gang turned on him when he stepped in to help the young woman and her boyfriend.
After Patch exposed the story, Elliott, Krapil, Lahey and Palacios were charged with aggravated battery and mob action. Elliott was also tagged with a hate crime charge.
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