Angry Victims Say 'Miley Cyrus Boys' Got Sweet Deals

Two of the men charged with the Miley Cyrus Boys bar beatings agreed to sweet deals from prosecutors, the victims of their alleged attack said Thursday.

“I don’t know how they could do that but they made the deal,” an angry Donny Rice said of the sentences agreed to for Ryan Elliott and Jason Palacios, two of the four charged with the May 2014 Miley Cyrus bar beatings.

Elliott and Palacios, both 28, went into the Hickory Street bar Lety’s place along with Robert Krapil, also 28, and Daniel Lahey, 27. Police said the four were gabbing about Miley Cyrus when they got there, and they then accosted 35-year-old Alex Hernandez, who was at the bar with his girlfriend, Jennifer Baranski, 32.

Hernandez said Elliott first ordered him to “take your ass to the other end of the bar with all the other Mexicans,” then called him a “spic” and a “beaner” before he and his three buddies pummeled him and knocked him to the floor.

Baranski tried to shield Hernandez from the blows, the couple said, but the four men, along with two others who have never been arrested or identified, beat her as well.

Rice, who happened to be at Lety’s to drop off dinner for his bartender daughter, told the Miley Cyrus Boys to stop punching and kicking a man they had already knocked to the ground, Hernandez said. The mob then turned their attention to Rice and viciously beat him as well.

Before attacking Rice, Hernandez said Elliott asked him, “Really, you’re going to fend for his kind, old man?”

The four were charged with felony aggravated battery. Elliott was also smacked with a hate crime charge. But Palacios has since agreed to testify against his pals and was offered a deal of misdemeanor battery, according to the victims in the case. The state’s attorney’s office confirmed the deal.

Elliott, described by the state’s attorney’s office and by Hernandez as the “ringleader,” will be sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years probation when he pleads on Tuesday, according to an agreement reached with his attorney, Chuck Bretz, said the victims and the state’s attorney’s office. He will only have to serve 30 of the 60 days and the hate crime charge will be dismissed.

Hernandez was disgusted with the agreement.

“I said, ‘Are you guys selling out for a reason?’” he recalled asking a prosecutor.

“I got beat up for being a Mexican, that’s it,” he said, adding, “No one has ever belittled me in this country like these guys.”

Elliott’s agreement will also make another aggravated battery case go away. He caught the charge for allegedly breaking the nose of Joliet resident Jim Lanham with an unprovoked punch at the Essington Road bar On the Rocks in June 2013.

Elliott was arrested after the fight but prosecutors chose not to file charges against him. The case was reviewed and charges were filed a year later — five days after Elliott and the other three were arrested in connection with the Miley Cyrus Boys attack.

Lanham declined to comment on the plea agreement.

Charles B. Pelkie, the spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office, said Palacios’ agreement to rat on the other three “brought Elliott to the table,” and that the deal calls for “significant jail time” and the threat of more time behind bars if he violates his probation.

Rice, who learned of the agreement Thursday from Patch, was discouraged by what he feels are light sentences for Elliott and Palacios. He said he was reluctant to bother testifying against Krapil and Lahey, who are scheduled to stand trial the same day Elliott pleads guilty.

“I’m supposed to miss two days of work?” Rice said. “Are you kidding me?”

Rice said that only a month ago he was assured Elliott would be sent to prison. He now feels he was failed by the system.

“We did everything we were supposed to do and it doesn’t sound like they did what they were supposed to do,” he said. “We did everything we were asked.”