Victim calls claim she was assaulted by Coleman, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the December stabbing, a ‘bold lie’ – Muddy River News

QUINCY — Before Jeremy Coleman left Adams County to begin his sentence at the Illinois Department of Corrections, Sajuada Bonner wanted to make sure he heard his version of the story.

Coleman pleaded guilty to two counts of armed violence, a Class X felony, and was sentenced to 22 years in prison on each count by Circuit Judge Tad Brenner in Adams County Circuit Court Monday morning. Each count will be served concurrently and he will have to serve 50 percent of his sentence.

Two counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated domestic battery and one count of aggravated battery were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Officers responded to the 600 block of Van Buren just before 11 a.m. on December 7, 2023, for a disturbance. When officers arrived, they found Bonner and his brother, Julian Harper, on the roof of a building, both suffering from stab wounds.

On March 1, Coleman filed a motion with the Adams County District Clerk’s office.He claimed he was protecting himself from an attack. He said he spoke to Bonner and an argument broke out, and he claimed Harper charged “aggressively” and tried to stab Coleman.

Colemen later claimed he felt Bonner grab him from behind and startle him. “He said he accidentally swung the knife backwards and accidentally pierced (Bonner’s) skin.”

Bonner read the victim impact statement before Brenner said he accepted Coleman’s sentence in the plea agreement.

“I would like to use this opportunity to speak my truth,” he said.

Bonner, who said he had known Coleman for 8 years, said that on the morning of December 7, he went to his house to take a nap before getting his children, ages 3 and 5, ready for school. (Coleman is the father of these children.) That morning, she received a call from a QUANADA advocate about a restraining order against Coleman, who she claimed was harassing her.

“I had no knowledge that the defendant was hiding in my home and listening to me (on the phone),” Bonner said. “I got out of bed to get dressed and as I bent over to put on my trousers, I was ambushed by the defendant in my attic closet. The defendant stabbed me at least six times while my children stood there and watched.

“My brother heard my screams from downstairs where he was with his girlfriend. He came to see what was happening. He also did not know that the defendant was in my house. We both tried to disarm Jeremy, but he had the handle of the knife, leaving us with only the knife to hold, so we failed. “During the argument, he finally stabbed my brother in the stomach.”

Bonner, who was pregnant with another child with Coleman at the time of the attack, said she and her brother have since struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares and no longer felt safe in her home. She was also diagnosed with depression as her children moved “from foster home to foster home.”

“Not having children broke me in the worst way,” she said. “There were days when I went to bed wishing I wouldn’t wake up. I had to hear my son ask me why I left him. As an abandoned child, this was something I never wanted my children to feel or experience, so I worked hard to give them a better life. Losing them made me feel like a failure.”

Bonner also said he and his brother faced backlash after Coleman’s story about the attack went public, which he called “bold lies.”

“Unfortunately, the truth will never come out because the defendant chose to take the easy way out,” he said. “These terrible events are the result of a lie he created in his head and escaped from, just like the lie the crime created around him. If he sees no harm in breaking his own child’s teeth and stabbing a woman who is pregnant with his child in front of her children, imagine what he could do to someone else. “He is dangerous and unpredictable.”

When Brenner asked Assistant State’s Attorney Laura Keck for a factual basis, she essentially repeated Bonner’s account. He said Bonner and Harper had to be taken to Blessing Hospital. He said the knife Coleman used was more than three inches long.

Coleman made no statement during the sentencing other than answering Brenner’s questions with “yes” or “no.”

If the jury had found Coleman guilty of the gun violence charges, he could have been sentenced to 10 to 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Coleman served 326 days in the Adams County Jail.