Posted on December 05, 2012 in Criminal Defense

According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, an off-duty police officer on his way to work began his shift a little earlier than planned when he noticed two men stealing mail from a postal truck and stopped them in the act. The men were not in uniform, yet they were unloading packages from a U.S. Postal truck parked on the 5900 block of West Fulton Boulevard. The officer watched them load the packages into a Black SUV that was parked close by. After loading the vehicle, the men sped off.

The officer began following the men and called into 911 with the description and information about the men and the SUV they were driving. Officers who were monitoring the radio spotted the men and began following them. When one of the men realized they were being followed by police officers, he began throwing the stolen mail out of the vehicle and onto the street.

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 Posted on December 03, 2012 in Criminal Defense

A 20 year-old Chicago man was shot in the wrist during an altercation with an off-duty police officer after he allegedly try to hit the officer with a stolen SUV. Lawrence R. Coleman, who is on parole from a 2010 conviction for driving a stolen vehicle, has been charged with attempted first-degree murder of a police officer, aggravated assault of a police officer with a vehicle, possessing a stolen vehicle and two counts of aggravated fleeing causing bodily injury.

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, Coleman was driving a stolen Honda CRV north on South Prairie Avenue when he passed a police cruiser which was equipped with a license plate reader. The device notified the officers in the cruiser that the SUV was stolen and the pulled Coleman over. The officers exited the cruiser and approached the SUV, which then sped off. Coleman lost control of the SUV and it hit a female pedestrian and a pole before smashing into a wall.

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 Posted on November 30, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Kidnapping, rape, robbery, and carjacking are among the charges filed against a man, who is already in jail awaiting his murder trial. According to authorities, the man has been in jail awaiting his trial for slaying a woman since 2009. The Chicago Tribune reported a story on the man and the impressive list of charges against him.

The new charges that Melvin Fagan is facing are not connected to his previous charges for slaying the woman, who was found strangled in a vacant building.

Fagan is now accused of kidnapping a woman and sexually assaulting her for more than two days. The alleged sexual assault took place in March of 2010. In addition to these charges, he is charged in the robbery and carjacking of an elderly man, 76, in December 2011.

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 Posted on November 30, 2012 in Criminal Defense

On November 18, Devontae Anderson and three other people were spotted by a police officer stealing $2,568 worth of clothing from the American Apparel store off of North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. According to this article from The Chicago Tribune, the police officer was almost struck after he stood in the street trying to get the driver to stop. The car swiped two parked cars while fleeing the scene and the police officer fired a shot through the front windshield, but no one in the car was hit.

Anderson, a seventeen-year-old with a juvenile record of retail theft, was caught and arrested after telling a friend about the robbery. The friend turned him in to the police, and he was held on a $100,000 bond on November 28. The charges include attempted murder of a peace officer, aggravated assault to a peace officer, and retail theft.

In addition to his juvenile background of retail theft, Anderson also has a history of battery. He had pleaded guilty to a battery charge just four days prior to this robbery.

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 Posted on November 25, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Kimberly Vaughn and her three children were fatally shot by her husband and their father and was recently convicted to life in prison.

Since the murders in 2007, Kimberly’s family had not seen Christopher Vaughn, until they publicly confronted him, crying and telling him what he had taken from them. Her mother asked why he could not have simply just left them and started his life over and it was shared that her father struggles to play with his other grandchildren.

After the both parents and Kimberly’s twin sister, Susan Ledbetter, shared what they had to say, The Will County judge sentenced Christopher Vaughn to four consecutive life prison sentences.

Throughout the entire process, Christopher Vaughn sat silently, displaying a lack of emotion that had become his only facial expression since the time the crime was discovered by police and through the 5-and-a-half week trial.

Investigators reported that Vaughn woke his family up on the morning of June 14, 2007, claiming he has a surprise trip to a water park planned. After piling into the family’s SUV in their home in Joliet, they pulled over after being on the road for only a short time. He first shot his wife, then each child twice: 8-year-old Blake, 11-year-old Cassandra, and 12-year-old Abigail, still while buckled into the back seat. He then shot himself in the leg and wrist, in an attempt to blame his wife for the shootings.

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 Posted on November 19, 2012 in Criminal Defense

The Illinois Attorney General’s office has announced the arrest of a McHenry woman for allegedly defrauding several suburban employers out of nearly $90,000 in workers’ compensation payments. Tracy Williams, 43, has been charged with workers’ compensation fraud, aggravated fraud, insurance fraud and perjury. She is being held on $90,000 bond.

According to a press release issued by Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Williams would create phony work-related injuries and then file claims for worker’s compensation insurance. Three of the companies she is accused of defrauding are Mastertek Auto Repair, in Algonquin;Thornton's Gas Station and Store, inEast Dundee; and Johnson Controls Inc., inGeneva. In one of the alleged phony injury claims, Williams said that her shoulder was injured when she lied about being punched by a customer.

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 Posted on November 16, 2012 in Criminal Defense

A Kane County judge gave prosecutors permission to use testimony based on the use of cadaver dogs in a 1990 murder case. This might be the first time that such evidence has been allowed to be presented in a state case. WGNtv.com reported a story about the case.

It is possible that Judge Timothy Sheldon's ruling will make way for dog handlers to provide evidence in the case of Aurelio Montano. Montano is a convicted double-murdered who is awaiting trial for killing his wife, Guadalupe Montano.

Prosecutors wish to present that ”cadaver dogs” showed signs of detecting human remains on a farm where authorities say Montano buried his wife after strangling her. The said farm is located in DuPage County, and the alleged murder took place in July 1990.

In other states, the use of cadaver dogs has been approved as testimony, and Illinois courts have accepted evidence obtained by dogs trained in finding narcotics. Prosecutors said, however, that they could find no Illinois state cases where the use of cadaver dogs was part of the evidence.

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 Posted on November 14, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Chicago police ran into a surprising turn in a case where a man was found burned in a trash can in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, when an autopsy showed the man was strangled. The Chicago Tribune reported a story about the case, along with stories of numerous recent shootings. If you are charged for a crime, contact us today.

Rodolfo Hernandez-Bey, 39, was found burned in a trash can in the Logan Square neighborhood on the night of November 6, according to authorities. After an autopsy found Hernandez-Bey was strangled, the death was ruled a homicide, the Cook County medical examiner's office says.

According to the medical examiner's office, Hernandez-Bey was found dead and burned a in garbage can around 9:20 p.m., and Hernandez-Bey, a Chicago resident himself, had to be identified through fingerprint analysis.

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 Posted on November 11, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Judge Cynthia Brim, a Cook County judge who was just re-elected to the bench, appeared in court on a misdemeanor charge for battery. The judge's doctor says she is bipolar but capable of working as a judge when on her medication. The Chicago Tribune reported a story about the judge and her battery case.

At her status hearing, where her case was transferred to another Cook County judge, Brim said she is happy that people allowed her to return to the bench by voting her back in.

Brim's battery charges were filed in March after she allegedly pushed a sheriff's deputy at a security checkpoint in the Daley Center. She is also believed to have thrown a set of keys toward another officer at the checkpoint. She was arrested a day after going on a tirade while she was at work in the Markham courthouse

Brim's attorney says Brim was legally insane when the alleged battery took place. According to the attorney, Brim has bipolar disorder, but she has been cleared for work by her doctor, since her condition can be controlled with medication.

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 Posted on November 07, 2012 in Criminal Defense

With two months left to go in the year, Chicago homicides have already reached the 2011 total. Sunday night, around 11 p.m., Fitz Bariffe, 68, became the city’s 435^th homicide victim of 2012.

Within one weekend, there were at least six people killed and an additional 14 wounded in gun violence.

It was reported that Bariffe had constructed a fence around his property to separate himself from drug deals, which is now being looked into as a possible reason for his death. The other shootings during the weekend all victimized men ranging in age from 20-35.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy reassured the city through NBC Chicago, saying that although the homicide rating has increased twenty-five percent in 2012, it was originally on track to be up by sixty percent.

On WGN, McCarthy praised the city’s new strategy of denying bonds to gang members, which would get them out of prison. These gang members have been previously eligible for release due to misdemeanor charges. The bond denials have been accredited to decreasing gun retaliation by McCarthy.

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