Judge ripped by advocates, state official for releasing man later accused of killing wife

A day after a man allegedly killed his estranged wife and was found dead blocks away in Portage Park, a Cook County judge faced heavy criticism for refusing to hold the suspect in custody as he faced charges in an earlier attack on the same woman.

In a harshly written letter, advocates for domestic violence survivors urged Chief Judge Timothy Evans to reassign Judge Thomas E. Nowinski to prevent him from hearing similar domestic cases. Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, meanwhile, pushed Nowinski to resign, noting that she wouldn’t “trust him with a traffic ticket at this point.”

First elected to the bench two years ago, Nowinski rejected prosecutors’ petition to have Constantin Beldie, 57, held in jail after he was charged in October with choking and attempting to kidnap his wife, Lacramioara Beldie, 54. Advocates said they view those charges as a red flag indicating a risk of more violence. 

Although the case was the second time Lacramioara Beldie filed for a protective order against her husband this year, Constantin Beldie was only placed on GPS monitoring with some other restrictions.

On Tuesday afternoon — a day after Constantin Beldie pleaded not guilty to those pending charges — he fatally stabbed his wife in the 5600 block of West Leland Avenue, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An off-duty detective who intervened and fired at Constantin Beldie suffered a graze wound to the leg.

Constantin Beldie was later found dead in a car in the nearby 5700 block of West Giddings Street, authorities said. The medical examiner’s office hasn’t ruled on his cause of death.

Mendoza and the victims’ advocates both highlighted another fateful decision Nowinski made on the bench earlier this year. After Nowinski denied a protective order against Crosetti Brand, a convicted felon with a history of domestic violence, Brand was charged with stabbing the woman who sought protection and killing her 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins.

“These victims would not have been victims had Judge Nowinski done his job,” Mendoza alleged in an interview with the Sun-Times. “It should never be OK to have two people die on your watch within eight months of each other, or ever frankly."

Nowinski could not be reached for comment.

A source close to the judge described the stabbing as “an awful tragedy.” But the source blamed the prosecution for failing to disclose important background information about the case. Nowinski also raised concerns about the preparation of the evidence and facts of the case during the hearing.

“If there were tools to perfectly predict human behavior pretrial with zero error, they would be used to prevent these sorts of tragedies,” the source said.

Cook County prosecutors couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Nowinski is a former Cook County prosecutor who rose through the ranks to become a deputy supervisor in the litigation unit of the state’s attorney’s office, according to a biography on the Cook County Democratic Party’s website.

He was hired in 2020 to serve as chief of staff to Iris Martinez, clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County. He later beat out attorney Carmen Migdalia Quinones in the June 2022 judicial primary and ran unopposed in the general election. His six-year term began in December 2022.

The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence urged the chief judge to move Nowinski out of the domestic violence division and ensure that he no longer presides over such cases.

“Judge Nowinski’s failure to protect the community has now resulted in two tragic, preventable murders,” said Amanda Pyron, president and CEO of The Network. “He has repeatedly shown he does not have the judgment necessary to keep survivors safe, and at a minimum he must be reassigned.

“When survivors go to the courts for protection, that protection must be effective," she said. "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.”

Pyron also criticized the court staff responsible for determining the risks of releasing Beldie for not providing the judge with essential information.

A spokesperson for Evans didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Cook County Democratic Party

Attacker earlier punched, kicked wife

Constantin Beldie was charged in the earlier attack on Oct. 9 — the same day he was served with an emergency order of protection his wife had sought, court records show.

Prosecutors said Constantin Beldie attacked his wife in an alley two days earlier, according to a transcript of the hearing. Constantin Beldie allegedly punched and kicked her and placed his hands over her face and nose, causing her “to lose her breath.”

He then tried to pull her into his vehicle, prosecutors said, but she was able to run away.

They filed a petition that day to have Constantin Beldie held in Cook County Jail pending trial, asserting that he was a flight risk and threat to public safety.

According to the transcript, Nowinski declined to order Constantin Beldie detained after ruling that prosecutors hadn’t met their burden to prove he had a high likelihood of fleeing or offered evidence that he had a history of domestic violence. Nowinski also raised concerns about the preparation for the hearing as the defense and prosecution sparred over evidence.

“Seems like there was some pretty sloppy work by either the police or felony review in this case,” he said.

The judge released Constantin Beldie on GPS monitoring, ordering him to refrain from possessing weapons, and forbade him from visiting his wife’s home, work or school.

“The petition to detain filed by the prosecution stated no history of orders of protection, no prior arrests for assault or threats, and no weapons used,” according to the person with knowledge of the judge’s thinking.

"Illinois Appellate Court precedent clearly states that judges must consider GPS and must issue the least restrictive conditions of release. If someone has no background and low scores from pretrial, and without other incidents, detention has routinely been reversed by the appellate court," the source said.

Husband said, ‘You know how easy it is to kill someone?': Petition

Some of the chilling accusations laid bare in Lacramioara Beldie's petitions for protective orders notably weren’t detailed in the hearing.

In the earlier petition filed on Jan. 8, she said she and her husband had been separated for months but had three adult children together. She alleged that her husband had attacked her, threatened to kill her and subjected her to verbal and physical abuse for eight hours.

She claimed the behavior wasn’t uncommon and cited menacing text messages he had sent. “You know how easy it is to kill someone?” she recalled him asking.

“I took this as a threat from the [suspect] because my grandfather killed my grandmother and then killed himself,” she wrote.

An emergency order of protection was ultimately vacated March 25, when Constantin Beldie agreed not to “harass, intimidate, physically abuse, stalk, or interfere with the personal liberty” of his wife.

But when Beldie was charged in October, records indicated that he had not been the subject of a prior protective order. He was deemed “Medium-Low Risk” for committing future domestic violence, according to the records.

Pyron, the advocate for abuse survivors, urged Cook County officials to “review procedures for domestic violence screening to ensure that judges have all the necessary information to accurately understand risk, including recent petitions for orders of protection.

“The failure to provide correct information in this case proved lethal,” she said.