Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Jason Chance already did time in prison for threatening Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow but was found unfit to answer new allegations of harassing officials.
A downstate man already convicted of threatening Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow on Facebook was found unfit to face new charges of menacing public officials. Jason Chance, 40, was returned to jail after a Monday morning court hearing but will be transferred to a facility run by the Illinois Department of Human Services. Chance has already taken a two-year prison sentence for making threats against Glasgow in 2010. According to a criminal complaint, Chance made a Facebook post "containing a threat to rape and kill James Glasgow." Chance was also charged with "cyberstalking" Glasgow. On top of the prison sentence, Chance was also hit with 30 months of probation with special conditions. Chance allegedly violated that probation by …
Monday, April 22, 2013
A Joliet mother was still sad and angry after her son's killer was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
After the man who gunned down her son was sentenced to 35 years in prison, Treasona Bew said it wasn't enough. "I'm not satisfied," Bew said in the courthouse hallway Monday morning. "I can never be satisfied." Bew's son, Mark Bew, was shot to death at age 19 in August 2009. Two men, Calvin "Cal Cal" Russell, 23, and Jeremy Travis, 22, were charged in connection with the killing. Russell pleaded guilty on April 5 to charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Travis pleaded guilty to one count of murder last month and was sentenced Monday. Travis was already pulling a 12 year sentence for aggravated battery with a firearm and aggravated discharge of a firearm in connection with…
Saturday, April 20, 2013
A former Plainfield North gym teacher pleaded guilty to meeting a teen for sex. And that was just one of the things going on in court this week.
More than two years after the police caught her in a car with a half-dressed student from the high school where she was a teacher, Ashley Blumenshine copped a plea. Blumenshine, a 30-year-old former Plainfield North gym teacher, will have to do 11 days in jail. She will also spend two years on sex offender probation and 10 yeas on the Illinois sex offender registry. She tearfully apologized before she was taken into custody to start doing her time. Let's look at what else was going on in the area's courthouses this past week: Check out all these stories and more on our Facebook page.
Friday, April 19, 2013
The attorneys for Joliet woman Margarita Hernandez said Google is still supplying them with records.
Lawyers defending a Joliet woman against charges she set up a sex date with a teenage boy at the west side home she shares with her 77-year-old lover said they are still gathering email records from Google. Margarita Hernandez, 33, was arrested in October after allegedly orchestrating the sexual liaison with the teen. The youth is a friend of the son of one of Hernandez's cousins, officials said. Hernandez's 77-year-old live-in boyfriend, veteran weekly newspaperman John Gabriel, was home at the time of the alleged sex date, police said. Gabriel has stood by Hernandez since her arrest. He claimed she is nothing more than a patsy in a frame-up concocted by the numerous enemies he has made over the years in the cutthroat world of community …
The former girlfriend of one of the alleged Hickory Street killers says she has suffered abuse at the hands of another man.
Court papers with claims of torture and intimidation filed against one of the four alleged Hickory Street killers by a former girlfriend read like a horror story. Now the same woman who told of escaping with her life from a relationship with a "serial killer" says she has been viciously abused again, this time by another lover. Ivon Walsh, 26, filed a petition for an order of protection against the man she identified as her current boyfriend, 22-year-old Brandon Haggerty of Plainfield. "Brandon made me miscarry," Walsh wrote in her petition, which includes allegations that Haggerty threw away her coffee, choked her, banged her head off a wall, threatened to have her family's house in Joliet blown up, and held a knife to her throat. Walsh …
Former Plainfield North High School gym teacher Ashley Blumenshine apologized as she was sentenced to 11 days in jail and 10 years on the state's sex offender registry.
A tearful Ashley Blumenshine choked out an apology between sobs after pleading guilty to having sex with a teenage student from the high school where she was a teacher. "I will forever be humbled and remorseful for my actions," Blumenshine, a former Plainfield North gym teacher, said before she was handcuffed and led away to the Will County jail Friday morning to serve 11 days behind bars. The actual sentence was 30 days but it was halved by day-for-day credit. Blumenshine already served four of the remaining 15 days before she was released on bond. In addition to the time in jail, Blumenshine, 30, was put on sex offender probation for two years and will be placed on the Illinois sex offender registry for 10 years. Blumenshine faced much …
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
The daughter of Will County Board member Herbert Brooks was sentenced to two years court supervision after paying off the money she stole from Target and completing her community service.
The daughter of Will County Board member Herbert Brooks paid back all the money she stole from her job at Target and will see the case against her dismissed completely if she can stay out of trouble for the next two years. Megan Brooks, 23, had faced a felony theft charge for stealing $1,291 from the 2701 Plainfield Road store in December 2011. Dave Neal, a special prosecutor appointed to the case, allowed Brooks to plead down to a misdemeanor in January and brokered a deal to sentence her to court supervision if she paid full restitution and completed 100 hours of community service. "Quite frankly, I was skeptical of her ability to get this all done by today," Neal told Judge Daniel Rozak during Brooks' sentencing hearing Tuesday morning…
A Joliet man held for a night at the Will County jail claims guards punched, beat and stomped him.
Will County jail guards unleashed a brutal beating on a prisoner who couldn't remove his tongue jewelry quickly enough, the man's lawyer said Tuesday. The former inmate, 35-year-old Curtis Cooper of Joliet, is suing four guards for allegedly attacking him in September. The guards, all members of the jail's Emergency Response Team, were escorting Cooper to a holding cell when one of them tripped him, the lawsuit said. The guards then "kicked, punched, beat and stomped on (Cooper's) body, including his feet," the suit said. Cooper's attorney, John Schrock, said the guards misrepresented the incident in an official report. "The officers that I sued wrote a use of force report in which they said two, maybe three times, they told (Cooper) to …
Friday, April 12, 2013
This time, only one person was ejected from the courtroom during the brief hearing.
About a half dozen spectators were tossed from the courtroom during alleged mother-murderer Charles McCullum's bond hearing last month. At his arraignment Friday morning, only one got the boot. The arraignment was over in a matter of minutes. But in addition to the spectator ordered out of Judge Robert Livas' courtroom, another had to be escorted back to the gallery by a bailiff after he approached the bench and stood alongside McCullum before the judge. "I just want to stand next to him," the man told the bailiff as he was led away. After the hearing, the man claimed to be McCullum's older brother but would not give his name. "I'm just shocked right now," the man said. "I really don't have any words." Court records show that McCullum has …
Thursday, April 11, 2013
One of the four jailed in connection with the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murders is getting $5,000 from the county to hire an expert witness.
One of the four young people charged with brutal murdering two men from Joliet is getting $5,000 to hire an expert witness—courtesy of the county. Bethany McKee, 18, of Shorewood, got the go-ahead from Judge Gerald Kinney to pay a doctor to observe DNA testing when it is conducted at the Illinois State Police crime lab. McKee is represented by a team of private attorneys—two of whom were on hand for the Wednesday morning hearing before Judge Kinney. Will County Assistant State's Attorney Marie Czech argued that if McKee can afford all those lawyers she should have to pay for her expert witnesses as well. "She is paying for private counsel and asking the state to pay for an expert, as if she is an indigent," Czech said. But one of McKee's …
Jax
8:56 am on Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Just look at glasgow if there aint a news camera in front of him he don't work...plus look at how his office is with sex offenders a male teachers would get 20 years in prison and the female one from Plainfield only got 11 days..Plus look at domestic violence how many woman commit it and serve no time even for multiple offenses but a man will serve time a year or more...pathetic...Glasgow wants … more ›