Lenny’s Gambling Machine Destroyed: Plainfield Defendant Surrenders

JOLIET — The Joliet Police Department issued a press release on Thursday letting everyone know that 19-year-old Plainfield area resident Yussef Zahran has surrendered. Zahran tried to run over a Joliet police officer with his car earlier this week on Caton Farm Road, according to his charges. A week earlier, Joliet police say, Zahran broke one of the gambling machines inside the Lenny’s gas station on Theodore Street.

According to Joliet police spokesman Dwayne English, the following events, two separate crimes, led to Zahran’s surrender at lunchtime on Thursday:

On April 20, at 4:03 a.m., Joliet police responded to Lenny’s Gas and Wash at 5951 Theodore Street for a property damage crime. A patron of the store had punched a slot machine in the gaming area, damaging it and rendering the machine inoperable.

The patron then left in a vehicle at a high rate of speed. The incident was captured on video surveillance, and Joliet’s detectives identified Zahran as the prime suspect.

On April 29, at 2:41 a.m., a Joliet patrol officer made a traffic stop on an Audi A6 near the 7800 block of Caton Farm Road for tinted windows and no front registration. The driver indicated he did not have his wallet and he repeatedly refused to exit the vehicle. When the officer advised him that he was under arrest, Zahran then drove at and nearly struck the officer.

Other officers checked the area but did not find Zahran.

On April 30, Joliet police obtained an arrest warrant for Zahran on charges of criminal damage to property for the incident at Lenny’s Gas and Wash, and an additional arrest warrant was issued for aggravated assault, obstructing a peace officer and fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer from the traffic stop on April 29.

Zahran was taken into custody at noon on Thursday, after turning himself in at the Joliet Police Department. Zahran was processed and released on his notice to appear, English noted. The Plainfield area teenager comes from Kingsbury Estates Drive.