Chicago Gangbanger Sentenced in Shooting Death of Chicago Ridge Woman

Joseph Sanders, 23 | Cook County Sheriff

Chicago, IL, June 2, 2016 -- A Chicago street gang member was sentenced to 14 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for the shooting death of a Chicago Ridge woman in 2012.

Joseph Sanders, 23, of Chicago, was convicted in February of second degree murder in connection to the slaying of 17-year-old Taylor Diorio of Chicago Ridge.

Cook County prosecutors said that Diorio was the front seat passenger in a vehicle near Sanders’ residence in the 2400 block of West 35th Street when she was shot in the early morning hours of Aug. 18, 2012.

According to the charges, the vehicle Diorio was a passenger in stopped in front of Sanders’ home in Chicago’s McKinley Park neighborhood, when another passenger got out of the car. Sanders claimed when he looked out of a second floor window a bottle was thrown at him.

Prosecutors said he responded by firing a gun toward the vehicle several times, hitting Diorio in the right side of her head.

The other passenger quickly got back into the vehicle. The driver drove the gravely injured Diorio to a hospital, where she later died of her wounds, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office said in a news release.

Sanders appeared at a sentencing hearing before Cook County Judge Thomas Gainer at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California, where he was handed his sentence.