Posted on September 02, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Prosecutors feel that Illinois State Police crime scene technician Robert Deel has done enough damage to high-profile murder cases for one month.

Just two weeks after Deel testified under oath in the Drew Peterson murder trial that he believes Peterson's third wife Kathleen Savio actually died in an accident, prosecutors took steps to minimize Deel's role in the Christopher Vaughn murder trial, which was discussed in a recent blog post.

Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fitzgerald requested Judge Daniel Rozak "prohibit the defense from questioning Robert Deel about a letter he believes the state police received from the Will County State's Attorney's Office requesting that Robert Deel no longer perform crime scene investigation in Will County cases," according to the motion filed Wednesday.

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 Posted on August 29, 2012 in Criminal Defense

The Chicago Tribune recently reported a tragic story of a family that was killed by the father. During the ongoing murder trial, relatives and friends say the mother of the family, Kimberly Vaughn, and her children seemed happy just days before the incident.

Back in 2007 when Vaughn and her children were shot to death, she was proud to be graduating from college and looking forward to spending the summer with her family. Her husband, Christopher Vaugh, seemed like he always was – introverted and quiet, but for the people who knew him, that wasn&t unusual behavior. Kimberly's father was the only one to say that he saw Christopher act differently, he noticed that Christopher did not say hello, but just walked past him. Kimberly had defended her husband, explaining his actions on  stress at work.

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 Posted on August 26, 2012 in Criminal Defense

NBC15, among others, reported a story by The Associated Press about an Illinois man killing his girlfriend. The homicide of 21-year-old Alisha Bromfield was first reported about on August 19, and the story was updated on August 20 with information about an Illinois man calling the Door County Sheriff's Department, saying he killed the victim, Alisha Bromfield.

The victim's body was discovered near Sturgeon Bay at a resort complex in Door County, Wisconsin on  August 19. Preliminary investigations revealed that she was a victim of a homicide. About noon that day, the 35-year-old male suspect called the sheriff's department from Sister Bay and said he killed his girlfriend. The resort where the victim was found is about 30 miles from Sister Bay.

The Plainfield, Illinois man was arrested and taken to jail, and authorities say the man will appear in court on the 22nd. The identity of the suspect remains unknown to the public.

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 Posted on August 21, 2012 in Drug Crimes

Prosecutors claim that 50 year old David Hatyina had been using alcohol and cocaine before driving a boat that struck and killed a 10 year old boy onPetiteLake. Hatyina has been charged with five counts of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol that resulted in death, and two counts of reckless homicide in the July 28 death of Tony Borcia.

The young boy and his 12 year old sister had been tubing behind a boat their father was driving. Waves caused the boy to fall off the tube and into the lake. His father turned the boat around to pick him up, but Hatyina appeared with his 29-foot Baja speed boat, driving it right towards Tony, ignoring attempts from the boy’s older siblings to get his attention to stop. Instead, Hatyina kept on driving and plowed his boat into the boy, killing him.

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 Posted on August 18, 2012 in Criminal Defense

During Memorial Day Weekend, 2009, Wade Thomas, 44, and his wife, Denise, 45, were on a motorcycle that was part of a line of bikes heading north on Illinois State Route 47. Alia Bernard, who was driving south in a 1999 Toyota Solara, rear-ended the car in front of her, which was the last in the line of three cars stopped; the first car waiting for the bikes to pass in order to take a left-hand turn. The impact of Bernard’s car caused a chain reaction which pushed the first car left into the oncoming bike, killing the Thomases and injuring another dozen people.

According to a report in the Kane County Chronicle, tests showed that Bernard, now 28, had marijuana in her system at the time of the crash. Her lawyer had argued that she had consumed the marijuana several days before the crash and was not impaired while she was driving. Prosecutors had originally charged her with reckless homicide. More than a year later, a charge of aggrdui-drunk-drivingavated DUI was added after a court ruling that a charge of DUI is valid even if a defendant only has drug residue in their system and is not impaired at the time of the alleged offense.

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 Posted on August 14, 2012 in Drug Crimes

The Chicago Tribune recently reported a story about a pharmacy technician, who is facing thirteen drug charges after the police found marijuana and over 2,300 prescription pills in her car. The medication uncovered in her car included Hydrocodone, Oxycontin, and Adderall. The pharmacy technician admitted to selling the medication on the streets for profit.

On August 2, the Lake County Sheriff's department responded to a call about a reckless driver and a black Toyota matching the description was found parked at a McDonald's parking lot in Volo, says a news release from the Lake County Sheriff's office. The officers approaching the vehicle smelled burning marijuana and noticed a clear plastic bag containing marijuana inside the car, says the release.

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 Posted on August 13, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Multiple police departments are working together to make Ogden Avenue a safer road for Illinois drivers.  It was initiated by the Naperville police department but stretches from Kendall County all the way to the boundary of Ogden Ave in Berwyn in Cook County.  Police Departments included in this initiative are Woodridge, Aurora, Oswego, Hinsdale, Yorkville, Downers Grove, Western Springs, Berwyn, and Lisle.  The DuPage County sheriff’s office, Kendall County sheriff’s office and Illinois State police will also be on the lookout for law breakers.

The Naperville police department released a statement outlining the purpose of this program.  The release stated that "the purpose of the campaign is to increase the safety of motorists utilizing the thoroughfare through education and traffic enforcement.  Our efforts will concentrate on speed, occupant restraint violations as well as other safety violations noted during our efforts."  The Woodbridge police department also wants to include drivers who appear to be driving under the influence.

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 Posted on August 11, 2012 in Criminal Defense

The New York Times did a story about three former college students being acquitted of their hazing charges in the death of a Cornell University student last year. Max Haskin, Ben Mann, and Edward Williams were accused of making George Desdunes drink dangerous amounts of alcohol during an initiation ritual for a fraternity. They were charged with hazing in the first degree and unlawfully dealing with a child, since Desdunes was underage.

The ritual included taking Desdunes and another male student to a house, where they were tied down and blindfolded. They were questioned about the history of the fraternity, and a wrong answer lead to a shot of vodka. As a result of the events of that evening, Desdunes was found dead on a couch with blood-alcohol levels of 0.356.

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 Posted on August 08, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Eight and a half years after his wife's death, former police officer Drew Peterson is taken to court on a murder charge. Peterson is accused of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, by drowning her, and he also remains under investigation in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

The Peterson murder trial had been postponed by two years, and Will County, Illinois, State's Attorney James Glasgow said that the prosecution is anxious to get to trial. Peterson's attorney said the state's theory about the murder is implausible at best, and that he is going to show it. The Peterson case has a long background story to it, and a recap of it can be found at the CNN website.

Peterson was still married to Savio, his third wife, in 2001, when he started an affair with a 17-year-old Stacy Kales. Savio and Peterson filed for divorce, and later on Kales became Stacy Peterson and gave birth to Peterson's fifth child in 2003. Savio and Peterson had a history of domestic violence, and Savio's relatives have later said she had been worried that Peterson would kill her and make it look like an accident.

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 Posted on August 05, 2012 in Criminal Defense

In June, 2011, Julie Gorcznski had just graduated high school and was one week away from her eighteenth birthday when the Jeep she was a passenger in was slammed into by a Mazda that had been traveling at least 76 mph in a 40 mph zone. The impact caused the Jeep to roll over, killing Julie. The driver of the Mazda, Lukasz Marszalek, 21, had an extensive history of speeding violations.

An investigation by the Chicago Tribune revealed that the court system had repeatedly granted Marszalek special probation (also known as court supervision) despite the fact that he repeatedly broke the law. Between October 2006 and August 2009, he was cited for speeding on six different occasions, receiving a sentence of supervision four times. The last two supervision sentences he received were in March and August of 2009.  By law, he should have been ineligible for supervision until April 2010. But on the day he appeared in court in August of 2009 and received the fourth supervision, he was cited for driving 100 mph in a 55 mph zone. For that violation, he was sentenced to a fifth supervision and a $500 fine. A sixth supervision was granted in September of 2009 and a seventh in June 2010.

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