Homicide Watch Chicago

By JON SEIDEL
Chicago Sun-Times

The aunt of the girl accused of fatally shooting Endia Martin has been indicted by a federal grand jury for her role in the 14-year-old’s 2014 murder.

faces 10 years in federal prison if convicted after she was indicted for giving a loaded .38-caliber revolver to a minor. U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez ordered Redwood into custody Thursday after she pleaded not guilty at her arraignment, according to federal prosecutors.

Redwood invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify last month when she took the witness stand during the trial of her cousin, Donnell Flora. A jury found Flora guilty of first-degree murder in Martin’s death.

Cook County prosecutors accused him of providing the gun to his then-14-year-old niece, who used it to kill Martin in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on April 28, 2014.

Cook County prosecutors originally charged Redwood with mob action and obstruction of justice, but those charges were dismissed in May 2014.

Now she faces a federal indictment that contends Redwood knew her niece planned to use the gun in a murder, and she possessed it within 1,000 feet of Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School and Visitation Catholic School.

“Prosecuting federal weapons laws is a top priority of our office,” U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said in a statement. “We will not hesitate to use every available federal tool to charge those responsible for furthering the cycle of violence in Chicago.”