Parolee charged in August rape now charged in June attack

A parolee already charged in an August rape in the East Chatham neighborhood has been charged in the rape and kidnapping of another woman only blocks away almost three months before.
Geraud Nichols, 25, is charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping in the ordeal  June 4 and 5 that began near 7900 S. Drexel Avenue, which is also the block where Nichols lives. Cook County Criminal Court Judge James Brown ordered Nichols held without bail in a court hearing midday today.
Nichols, who is on parole in a 2009 possession of a stolen motor vehicle case for which he was sentenced to 7 years in prison, was arrested in the June attack on Tuesday after the victim identified him in a lineup.
The victim in the June attack was near 79th and Drexel about 11 p.m. June 4, when someone stole her cell phone and she began following the thief. Nichols came up behind her, forced her into an alley at gunpoint and raped her.
Nichols then held the victim at gunpoint and was let into a nearby apartment building by someone, taking her with the gun to her back into an apartment. In the apartment, he lay down with her with the gun to her back until the morning in a room with two adults and children.
 In the morning, Nichols took the victim to the area where her phone had been stolen, confronted a woman about the phone’s theft, then left briefly and came back with the phone.
Nichols told the victim to go into a nearby corner store while he stayed outside, but he was arrested by police on suspicion of possession of the gun. Court records show Nichols was arrested June 5, found guilty of possessing a replica firearm or pellet gun, and given two days in jail, plus at $264 fine. Records indicate he was, however, taken back into state custody in the 2009 stolen motor vehicle case.
After Nichols was arrested June 5, the victim went home and called her mother, and when her mother came home, told her what had happened.
After Nichols was released from state custody Aug. 15, on Aug. 29 about 10:50 p.m., Nichols attacked another woman after approaching her and a friend near 78th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, according to prosecutors and police records. The victim and her friend were walking when Nichols went up to them and asked if he could walk with them.
When the friend went home, the victim and Nicholas walked together for a few blocks before Nichols pulled a gun, threatened her and pulled her into an abandoned building, where he raped her and stole her cell phone. The victim later saw him and called police, who arrested him with the victim’s phone.
After his arrest, Nichols was released in lieu of $400,000 bail, for which he had to put down $40,000 cash, according to court records. When he was arrested again this week in connection with the June attack, he admitted he had been with the victim in June and having had sex with her,