SKOKIE, IL — A Chicago plumber is accused of opening fire into the Skokie home of a business rival after his company lost out on a contract to handle buildings at Loyola University Chicago.
Mirssad Pekovic, 36, of the 2500 block of West Balmoral Avenue, was arrested Sunday in Morgan Grove and charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm in connection with a March 23 shooting, according to police and prosecutors.
Pekovic, the co-owner of City Plumbing, appeared in court for an initial court appearance Tuesday in Skokie.
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Prosecutors said Pekovic’s company was competing for a contract with a management company to service Loyola University Chicago and lost out prior to the shooting.
About 11 a.m. that day, someone fired about 10 shots into the garage of a Skokie home, leaving bullet holes in the garage and in a car parked in the driveway, according to Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Nic Attia.
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“The next day, the [Skokie resident] received a text message from a ‘burner’ phone number, the texts indicated that the [he] should walk away from the building job that that [he] got at the city,” Attia said.
The anonymous text message also told the resident that he “should not take food off another man’s table,” and suggested that next time the shooter may not not just shoot up the garage and driveway, according to the prosecutor.
Although detectives were unable to trace the origin of the threatening text messages, they learned that Pekovic had been in line for the job they referenced, Attia said.
Doorbell camera captured someone carry out the shooting from a white Volkswagen SUV registered to Pekovic’s brother, and license plate cameras from the area revealed it had a license plate recently stolen from a car parked at a Glenview Jewel-Osco, according to prosecutors.
Attia said a male person was seen on security footage from the Jewel parking lot stealing the license plate, and cell-site location information from Pekovic’s cell phone indicated that he went from the areas of his doctor’s appointment in Mount Prospect, the Glenview store where the plate was stolen and then to the Skokie house into which he is charged with shooting.
According to the prosecutor, detectives got a search warrant for the SUV five days after the shooting and found a spent shell casing and paperwork from Pekovic’s doctor’s visit from the day of the shooting.
Dean Morask, Pekovic’s defense attorney, said the evidence in the case was circumstantial.
“Nobody approves of anybody shooting at anybody’s structure, obviously,” Morask said.
“But the complaint that’s before the court alleges shooting at a building that my client would have known was occupied,” he said.
The type of aggravated discharge of a firearm charge filed by prosecutors concerns shooting “at or into a building he or she knows or reasonably should know to be occupied and the firearm is discharged from a place or position outside that building.” A conviction can be punished by probation to 15 years in prison.
According to the defense attorney, the prosecution did not present any evidence to suggest that anyone would have been expected to be in the garage or cars in the driveway.
Pekovic’s business rival and two family members were at home at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
Associate Judge Anthony Calabrese noted that Pekovic had never been convicted of a crime, having instead successfully completed supervision, and never failed to previously appear in court. He said questions about Pekovic’s intent would have to be determined by a trial court judge.
Calabrese ordered Pekovic not to have any contact with witnesses or their families, to turn over any guns or firearm licenses to Skokie police and not to possess them during the case and to post $5,000 cash to secure his pretrial release.
“The impact and consequent of the allegations alleged against the defendant are significant,” he said, “in the sense that it is an act that is done with the intent to inflict fear and certainly that is what would have happened to the complaining witnesses.”
Pekovic posted the cash portion his his bail and is due back in court May 25 to be indicted.
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