An Ogle County judge has denied a civil contempt of court petition filed against a Rochelle teenager for not providing prosecutors with a passcode for one of his two cellphones.

Associate Circuit Judge Anthony Peska ruled against the Ogle County State’s Attorney’s Office to hold Camren Hastings, 18, liable for indirect civil contempt of court, following a Thursday, Feb. 19 hearing.

“I don’t think you’ve met your burden of proof to hold him in contempt,” Peska told Assistant State’s Attorney Matthew Leisten at the end of Thursday’s petition hearing.

Hastings is charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm, a Class 1 felony, and aggravated use of a firearm as a person under the age of 21, a Class 4 felony.

Both charges were filed in connection with an Oct. 4, 2025, incident in which Hastings is accused of firing a gun in the direction of a vehicle that was occupied by another person.

Hastings has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and has been held in the Ogle County Jail since his arrest in late October.

Leisten filed a motion Dec. 2 asking the court to compel Hastings to provide access to one of two iPhones recovered from a search at Hastings’ home in the 400 block of Lake Lida Lane on Oct. 28.

Police said the October search warrant stemmed from an Oct. 4 evening incident in which “a vehicle had been shot approximately 13 times in the 100 block of Willis Avenue.”

At an Oct. 29 detention hearing, Leisten said Hastings was one of a group of 10 individuals walking on the street shooting guns about 11:10 p.m. Another juvenile has been charged in connection with the incident, but juvenile charges and hearings are not open to the public.

Leisten said a passcode was needed to gain access to the iPhone, which had been recovered during a previous residential search.

A Nov. 25 search warrant authorized law enforcement officers to press Hastings’s fingers on any Touch ID sensor of any Apple brand device for the purpose of unlocking it.

On Thursday, Rochelle Police Department Detective Matthew Wittenberg testified that Hastings had provided a passcode for only one of the Apple iPhones seized in the searches.

Wittenberg said he asked Hastings for the passcode again in January and he did not comply.

“He said he did not remember the code,” Wittenberg testified.

The iPhone could not be unlocked using biometrics – a Touch ID sensor to unlock it – Wittenberg said.

Leisten argued that Hastings was “willfully disobeying” the court’s order.

Assistant Public Defender Eric Morrow disagreed, telling Peska that Hastings could not provide a passcode because he could not remember it.

“He [Hastings] was unable to provide the passcode because he can’t remember it,” Morrow told Peska. “I forget passcodes all the time.”

Morrow said Hastings could not purge himself of the contempt charge because he simply did not have the information to do so.

Leisten asked Peska to take away any “good conduct” credit being earned by Hastings while being held in the Ogle County Jail until he provides the passcode.

Peska disagreed and denied the state’s petition, ruling that the state had not provided evidence to prove the phone belonged to Hastings.

The criminal case against Hastings was continued to 9 a.m. March 12. Morrow asked for that date to review more discovery evidence.

Hastings was remanded to the Ogle County Jail.

During an Oct. 29 hearing, Leisten said video footage obtained by officers showed four males and two females – some appearing to be juveniles – running into a nearby cornfield. He said it appeared that between 13 to 14 shots were fired at the vehicle during the incident and that police collected 12 bullet casings and two firearms near the scene.