Chicago voters either didn't know or didn’t mind that a Cook County judge gave pretrial release to a career criminal with more than 70 arrests last year — overriding prosecutors to do so — only for him to then allegedly set a young woman on fire
as she rode on a train.
They reelected Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzales in Tuesday’s judicial retention election by a whopping 71-percent margin.
BREAKING: Judge Molina-Gonzalez (D) wins 71% of the vote in Cook County
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 5, 2026
She's the one who freed Lawrence Reed in Chicago after 72 prior arrests before he lit Bethany McGee on fire pic.twitter.com/6InHtoHMa8
Last year, the judge let convicted felon Lawrence Reed back on the streets with an ankle monitor in connection with a separate violent incident before the alleged fiery attack on 26-year-old Bethany MaGee on a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train.
MaGee was riding innocently on the CTA's Blue Line when Reed allegedly attacked without warning, dousing her with a flammable liquid and shouting, "Burn alive, bitch!" resulting in critical burns over half of her body, according to news reports.
A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted Reed in December on terrorism and arson charges for the attack as well as for allegedly setting fire to Chicago City Hall three days earlier.
Reed had 72 prior arrests that include eight felony convictions and seven misdemeanors, according to the White House, which also weighed in on the crime as it criticized the city’s “no cash bail” policies.
MaGee spoke out for the first time Wednesday, according to CBS News, after her family learned of the judge's reelection. “I hope the women of Chicago will be kept safe from attacks by repeat offenders,” she said in a statement.
Another woman, Amy Eck, says she was also a victim of Reed’s back in 2021, after she accused him of seemingly randomly picking her out and punching her in the face outside her office building.
“I mean, just based on that alone, no, that poor girl, I mean, that judge is lucky she didn’t die,” Eck said.
MaGee’s family told CBS News Chicago two months ago that she was “progressing slowly but steadily” from her injuries.
University of Chicago political science professor John Mark Hansen said there's a reason judges are often not held accountable for bad decisions.
“Judicial elections are what’s known in the political science business as ‘low information elections,'” he told CBS.
Hansen says most voters don’t know much about the judges and have little time or motivation to learn about them.
“I have a rule where I look up to [sic] the recommendation of the bar associations and see if there are any of them that are not recommended, and I vote against them.”
Others, he said, he just leaves blank.
Molina-Gonzalez, however, received a “qualified” rating for retention, CBS reported.
When the network asked the association why it gave Molina-Gonzales that positive rating, the association said, “A judge’s ruling in a particular case can certainly be part of the public discussion, but one decision — or media coverage of that decision — does not necessarily provide a complete picture of a judge’s qualifications to serve.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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