2-Sep-19 – The man who brutally beat a 61-year-old security guard at Trump International Hotel & Tower in March has been sentenced to probation.

Craig Echols, age 24, allegedly attacked the guard and another security officer after they confronted him for smoking in the lobby of the River North hotel and damaging property. The older guard was knocked to the ground, suffering a broken finger, torn ligaments in his right knee, a fractured cheekbone, and facial trauma that required 17 stitches to close, according to court records.

Echols (left) pleaded guilty last week to a single count of aggravated battery of a security officer. In exchange, prosecutors dropped 14 additional aggravated battery charges as well as a count of criminal damage to property. Associate Judge Timothy Joyce sentenced Echols to two years of probation and 164 days of time served.

The attack at Trump Tower came just four months after Echols was accused of beating a 39-year-old woman with a baseball bat, records show. In that case, a woman emerged from an apartment carrying a bloody baseball bat. Her face and head were covered with blood, cuts, and contusions, police said.

The woman reported that Echols had beaten her with the bat. But Echols – whose hands were bloody, according to police – countered that the woman swung the bat at him, so he disarmed her and struck her with it in self-defense. The charges were dropped after the woman stopped cooperating with prosecutors.