(MCT) — A wealthy Frankfort teen who pleaded guilty last year to reckless driving after running a stop sign and smashing into a retired Downers Grove couple sought permission Monday to attend the
[ Grammy Awards ]
even though the injured couple have yet to receive his court-ordered apology letters.
Gerald and Marybeth Ryan were driving home from a child's birthday party three years ago when Raihan "Ray" Sayeed, who was on court supervision for speeding, blew through a stop sign in Mokena and T-boned their car, causing it to roll three times.
Marybeth, now 63, spent a week in a Joliet hospital's intensive care unit with a lacerated liver and bile duct; broken facial bones, ribs and arm; and partially severed tongue, records and interviews show. Her husband had a broken arm and leg.
On Monday, Judge Sarah Jones appeared annoyed when Sayeed sought permission while on probation to attend Sunday's Grammys and go on four or five unspecified family vacations this year.
She noted, before denying his requests, that he had been sentenced in November yet hadn't sent the apology letters. Sayeed's probation officer said in court that she now has the letters.
"I recall the damage that he did to those people," Jones said, referring to the Ryans. "Going to the Grammys is a privilege, not a right."
The judge did allow Sayeed, a student at Loyola University Chicago, to travel for medical-school interviews.
Sayeed had previously been found to have violated the terms of his $40,000 bail by leaving Illinois without permission to attend a Miami party for rapper Lil Wayne's2010 release from prison. Pictures of the then-high school student posing with rapper T-Pain were posted on Facebook.
In December, a picture of his Grammy invitation was posted on Sayeed's Facebook page with the caption: "This year I'll be giving interviews so look out for that!"
For the Ryans, the requests and unsent apology letters are more examples of Sayeed's lack of remorse.
"I'm more than a little annoyed by it," said Marybeth, who has had several surgeries and will have another later this month to replace her knee. "I would like to see him accept some responsibility for it so he won't do it again. We were really, really lucky that we survived it."
Prosecutors charged Sayeed, now 19, with felony aggravated reckless driving in the 2009 crash at Francis and Townline roads. He had twice been cited for speeding since 2008 — once in a 2005 Ferrari and once in the 2007 Chrysler 300 he was driving that night.
On May 9, 2009, Sayeed was speeding north on Townline Road when he veered around a friend's car, through a stop sign and into the intersection, striking the Ryans' Ford Focus. The speed limit on Townline is 35 mph, and Sayeed was driving 62 mph two seconds before the crash, an accident report found.
Sayeed faced up to three years in prison. But in November, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor reckless driving charge and was sentenced to probation. His driver's license wasn't suspended, but he was ordered to be home each night by 10.
This wasn't the first time the Sayeed family had a run-in with authorities. In 2000, his parents agreed to pay a $3 million civil penalty after being accused of using their privately owned HMO — once the fifth-largest in the state before it collapsed, leaving an estimated 90,000 patients in the lurch and $20 million in unpaid medical claims — to benefit themselves.
State officials alleged Asif and Shaheen Sayeed used corporate funds to buy a jet, Lamborghini and two Bentleys.
They denied any wrongdoing. After the settlement, an Illinois law was passed requiring that privately owned HMOs be overseen by an outside board of directors.