Jury selected in trial of Plainfield landlord accused of killing young Palestinian boy in 2023
A jury was empaneled Monday in the trial of a Plainfield Township landlord accused of fatally stabbing a young Palestinian boy and stabbing his mother in 2023 in Will County.
Joseph Czuba, 71, is facing murder and attempted murder charges along with aggravated battery and two counts of hate crime charges. He pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Eighteen potential jurors were questioned, six were excused, and 12 were sworn in along with three alternates.
A major focus as potential jurors were questioned Monday was whether they could base decisions on what will happen in court despite the publicity of the case.
After being questioned in open court, each prospective juror was briefly questioned privately in another room by Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak and the defense and prosecution.
All jurors sworn in said publicly they could remain fair and impartial, even if they had heard about this case.
On Oct. 14, 2023, Czuba stabbed 32-year-old Hanan Shaheen and her 6-year-old son Wadee Alfayoumi, who were tenants of his at an apartment inside a Plainfield home.
Last week, the defense filed a motion to have Joseph Czuba's statements thrown out. These statements made between him and a Will County sergeant had not been Mirandized. The judge decided to allow the statements to be entered as evidence.
Prosecutors said Czuba essentially blamed Shaheen since she was Muslim. He then attacked her with a knife, and she locked herself in her bedroom and called 911. She was unable to get ahold of her son.
Police arrived to find Czuba outside and Shaheen with more than a dozen stab wounds. The 6-year-old suffered 26 stab wounds. He later died at the hospital.
Prosecutors said the Czuba wanted the two to move out of the Plainfield Township apartment they rented as he feared he and his wife were in danger— saying he feared Shaheen was going to "call over her Palestinian friends of family to harm them."
The justice department opened its own investigation into the case, with the FBI also looking into federal hate crime charges.
The case garnered national attention, with former President Joe Biden marking one year since the young boy's death this past October—resulting in the question of whether jurors could remain impartial despite the publicity.
Though the boy's parents were not in attendance for the jury selection, Joseph Milburn with the Chicago branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States, has been working with them since this incident and spoke out on behalf of the family.
"Justice in our eyes would look like Joseph Czuba being locked up for the rest of his life," said Milburn. "The crime he committed — to enter someone's home and to stab someone to death 26 times due to the child's religion and race — is completely heinous, and it's one of the most gruesome hate crimes to have impacted the Muslim and Arab community in recent history."
Milburn said a life sentence would "send a message that hate crimes against anyone on the basis of their religion and national origin are not tolerated."
If convicted, Czuba could face a maximum sentence of life in prison. It's unclear how long the trial is expected to last.
