A petty thief who tried to lift the iPhone of a customer at acclaimed Chicago sushi joint Juno realized a bit too late that he probably should have picked a restaurant that isn’t co-owned by a martial arts expert who used to be a bouncer.
Restaurateur Jason Chan told the Chicago Sun-Times he suspected the disheveled man as soon as he walked in and put his jacket on the bar.
His suspicions were confirmed when the man suddenly snatched the coat back and ran out of the restaurant.
After verifying with a customer that his iPhone 5 had indeed been stolen, Chan took off in search of the perp.
A few blocks down the road, Chan spotted a man wearing the same striped sweater enter Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria.
He went in to confront the man, and noticed him attempting to pull off the same jacket scam.
“We engaged with each other, and he tried to push me out of the way and run out,” Chan recalled. “I grabbed him and threw him into the door.”
The door broke, but the suspect — later identified as 37-year-old Justin Ballog — continued being “adversarial,” so Chan relied on his Shidokan skills to knock him out with a kick to the head.
“He tried getting physical with me, and at that point I kind of neutralized him,” Chan told CBS Chicago.
Police arrived at the scene and arrested Ballog, who by then had confessed his crime to Chan.
Ballog was charged with misdemeanor theft and his bail was set at $10,000.
“What’s right is right,” Chan said.
[Gawker]