2nd Update: This is just so phenomenal. They are setting up a court monitored trust, so the victim can get the mental health treatment, his working class family could not otherwise afford to give him. It will also open up resources available to him that his family would not have otherwise known about or could afford.
I'm so happy to see the money will be used 100% for his care. God Speed Austin! May you future days be healthy and bright!
I just came across this recent article from the Chicago Sun Times, and figured I'd share a few excerpts from the family's friend, attorney and official spokesman:
A campaign titled “Let’s show the Chicago Victim love” had raised $153,840 as of Tuesday afternoon, just five days after the page was started by a good Samaritan with no connection to the family. The money is sorely needed as the man, an 18-year-old who suffers from schizophrenia, will need to recover from a days-long ordeal that began when an acquaintance kidnapped him on New Year’s Eve, said Neal Strom, an attorney who is helping the man’s family deal with press inquiries.
“My clients are overwhelmed with the warm, kind generosity of perfect strangers,” Strom said Tuesday. “It just came out of the clear blue sky . . . it shows that there are good people out there after all [the victim] has been through.”
Strom said the abuse was traumatic and terrifying for the victim, whom he described as “shy and introverted.” The six-figure pot of donations will be used to get treatment for him, not just for the stress of the incident but mental health care his working-class family has struggled to provide throughout his life, said Strom, who said he is not charging the family for his help.
“It will be 100 percent devoted to providing for him, with things he’s never really had, enough resources to counsel and properly diagnose and treat his mental state,” Strom said, adding the money likely will be placed in a court-monitored trust. “The family is not well-off at all. They have very, very modest means. Anything in this account will be judiciously used to get this young man the help that he needs.”
Strom said he has fielded calls and offers from organizations and individuals across the U.S., but has spoken only to family members, and he isn’t sure how aware the victim is of the many people expressing sympathy. Cards and letters have also flooded a P.O. Box in Cary, Illinois, set up by a relative.
“It’s been overwhelming,” Strom said. “I hope that this will connect [the family] with organizations and opportunities that would never have been available to them, had it not been for this horrible, disgusting, beyond-belief thing that happened.”
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/-for-victim-in-chicago-torture-case-raises-over-150000/
https://www..com/lets-show-the-chicago-victim-love
