In August 2015, Thaddeus “T.J.” Jimenez — a wannabe Chicago gang boss with millions of dollars from a wrongful-conviction settlement — took aim from his Mercedes convertible and shot a man in the legs as “Ave Maria” blasted on the car stereo and an associate caught it all on a cellphone video that went viral.

On Wednesday, nearly eight years later, Jimenez pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, finally wrapping up the last criminal case he faced.

It was one of Chicago’s longest-standing criminal cases. Of the thousands of people held in the Cook County Jail awaiting trial, the case against Jimenez, 44 — who was the subject of season 1 of “Motive,” a Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ podcast, in 2019 — was among the oldest.

He was arrested Aug. 17, 2015, after pulling up to Earl Casteel on Belle Plaine Avenue in Irving Park, asking “Why shouldn’t I blast you?” and then shooting him in the legs. 

Jimenez and his passenger, a gang pal, were arrested after Jimenez crashed the car — one of many luxury vehicles he bought with the money City Hall paid him — during a police chase.

The podcast examined Jimenez’s life — including his arrest for murder at 13, his exoneration at 30, his award of $25 million in a wrongful-conviction lawsuit and his decision to spend his settlement money on his gang, the Simon City Royals on the Northwest Side, along with a faction of another gang, the Vice Lords, whose members he recruited on the West Side.

The 2015 shooting case was complicated because Jimenez and passenger Jose Roman were hit with both federal and state charges over the same crime.

In 2017, Jimenez was sentenced to 110 months in federal prison and Roman to 87 months after they pleaded guilty in the case to illegal gun possession.

Before sentencing them, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber watched the video Roman made of their car ride and the shooting and declared it “shocking” and “Exhibit A for gun violence.”

Roman later pleaded guilty in Cook County criminal court to aggravated battery and was sentenced to six years in prison. He was paroled last year.

But Jimenez’s Cook County case dragged on. In part, that was because he filed an unsuccessful appeal, arguing that the state charges were unconstitutional because he already had been charged in federal court with the same underlying crime. His lawyer Steve Greenberg argued that this amounted to double jeopardy.

Jimenez’s federal and state convictions will run concurrently. That means he’ll have to serve 12 years from the time of his 2015 arrest. He’ll get credit for the time he already has spent in jail while awaiting trial. He also could earn “good time” in prison that could shave time from his sentence.

As part of Jimenez’s plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges he had still faced over gang fights that Cook County sheriff’s officials say he got into in Cook County Jail.

Casteel, the man Jimenez shot, sued him over the shooting, which left him disabled, and in 2016, won a $6.3 million judgment against Jimenez.

But in 2021, Casteel fatally shot his wife and killed himself.

His lawyer is continuing to try to collect the judgment on behalf of Casteel’s kids, according to court records.