Saturday, May 18, 2013
A lawsuit against an imprisoned preacher from Crete and an Indiana megachurch topped the week's court news.
A former megachurch preacher sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in March for carrying on a sexual relationship with a teenage member of his congregation was sued in Will County court. In addition to preacher Jack Schaap, 55, of Crete, the First Baptist Church of Hammond was named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The parents of a teenage girl Schaap had sex with while he was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond filed the lawsuit. The suit identifies the parents as "John Doe and Mary Doe," and the teen as "Jane Doe." The suit gives Jane Doe's date of birth as June 27, 1995. Here's what else was going on at the area's courthouses: Check out all these stories and more on our Facebook page.
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.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
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 …
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
A Joliet Junior College student and two school employees claim they found cockroaches in coffee they bought from a vending machine in the JJC cafeteria.
A Joliet Junior College vending machine dispensed unwanted cockroaches along with cups of coffee, a student and two school employees claim in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. JJC student Bobbi Smith and employees Gary Broyles and Richard Anderson all said they got cockroaches they didn't want in their coffee in the summer of 2012. Smith, Broyles and Anderson are suing Hometown Suburban Vending for allegedly allowing cockroaches to infest the coffee machine. It was the "duty" of the Oak Lawn company to "provide vending machines that dispensed beverages that were free and clear of contamination by insects," the lawsuit said. A woman answering the phone at Hometown Suburban Vending said no one was available to discuss the allegations of cockroaches …
Friday, March 22, 2013
A woman suing Chicagoland Speedway says a flagpole fell on her.
A woman claiming a falling flagpole broke her back is suing Chicagoland Speedway. Elfega Duensing's lawsuit against the racecar track was filed at the Will County Courthouse this week. Duensing was walking through a Chicagoland Speedway parking lot in June when a flagpole fell and hit her in the back, according to her lawsuit. The flagpole was "affixed to a concrete container filed with sand," the suit said. The impact of the flagpole caused "injuries including thoracic spine fractures," the suit said. Chicagoland Speedway is to blame for Duensing's broken back because the flags lacked the "necessary wind slits," the containers of sand weren't heavy enough to support the flagpoles and they were unsecured, the lawsuit said. Get all the …
Friday, March 15, 2013
A young man allegedly attacked by a Will County Board member's son has filed a lawsuit claiming he was the victim of a hate crime.
A Joliet man allegedly whipped at the hands of a belt-wielding Will County Board member's son has filed a lawsuit claiming he was the victim of a hate crime. The suit names Alex Wilhelmi, the 21-year-old son of board member Steve Wilhelmi, D-Joliet, along with two of Alex Wilhelmi's friends—Manuel Borrego, 24, and Daniel Duffy, 23. Joliet resident Trey Travis, 20, filed the lawsuit this week at the Will County Courthouse. According to the suit, Travis was riding in a Saturn Vue with two other men on July 1 when Borrego turned his Pontiac Grand Prix into the path of their vehicle. Duffy and Wilhelmi were riding with Borrego, the suit said. Words were exchanged and Travis got out of the Saturn, the suit said. Alex Wilhelmi, Borrego and Duffy…
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
An woman suing a sponsor of the Taste of Joliet claims someone shot her in the face with a T-shirt.
Lots of people went to last year's Taste of Joliet with plans to stuff their faces, but not by getting in the way of a T-shirt hurtling through the air. Plans or not, a woman claims that's exactly what happened to her, and now she is suing the event's title sponsor. The suing woman, Debra Simmons, is going after D'Arcy Buick GMC Inc. According to the Taste of Joliet's website, 39 other entities sponsored the 2012 event. Simmons is not suing any of them. She is also not going after the Joliet Park District, the organizers of the Taste of Joliet. Simmons claims a flying T-shirt, which was encased in a cylinder or canister, caused injuries to her "head, face, teeth, and cervical spine," according to her lawsuit. Simmons' attorney, Warren E. …
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
A Romeoville man's lawsuit claims his girlfriend incited her daughter and three friends to savagely attack him at his home.
A Romeoville man claims his lying lady friend whipped her daughter and three of her pals into such a frenzy that they pulled him out of his home, beat him senseless and cracked his skull with a golf club. The allegedly wronged man, Thomas Lerch, laid out his grievances in a lawsuit filed this week at the Will County Courthouse. Lerch said his girlfriend at the time, Lana Richards, 44, was taken to the Romeoville police station in September after a "domestic altercation" at the Dalhart Avenue home they were sharing. While at the station, Richards called her daughter, Melissa Richards, 25, and "falsely told" her she "had been beaten by Thomas Lerch," the lawsuit said. She also asked for a ride. When the daughter took the call, the lawsuit …
A man claims he suffered a severe injury to his leg while playing in a paintball game at CPX Sports in Joliet, and now he's suing.
A paintball player claims he fell on a metal stake and blames the owners of the recreational facility where he was playing for the injury he suffered. Leonel Vazquez sustained a "really severe gash on his leg," said his attorney, David Heyer of Chicago. Vazquez was playing in a paintball game at CPX Sports in June when he "landed on a metal stake sticking out of the ground," according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf by Heyer at the Will County Courthouse. Heyer said Vazquez is in his 20s and lives somewhere in DuPage County. The lawsuit demands a judgment against CPX Sports in excess of $50,000. CPX Sports operates about 20 different paintball fields on its 150-acre complex. The Schweitzer Road facility also rents and sells paintball …
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The civil case against a Naperville man who allegedly ran down a young woman from Joliet and then fled, leaving her to die, has a settlement agreement on the table.
The family of a 20-year-old Joliet woman left for dead on the side of McDonough Street has offered to settle a wrongful death lawsuit for $250,000. The settlement deal calls for attorneys representing the estate of University of Illinois student Melissa Lech to get $84,325.09 of the settlement. Half of the remaining $165,674.91 will go to Lech's mother, Maria Lech. Melissa Lech's two sisters, Monica and Michelle Lech, would split $82,837.45, according to court papers. Melissa Lech, a Plainfield South High School graduate, was run down on McDonough Street in August 2008. On the night of her death, she drank on the way up to a White Sox game, continued drinking at the game and on the way back to Joliet, and then headed to the Jefferson …
Fester Bestertester
4:22 pm on Monday, May 20, 2013
Drunkenly driving and drunkenly lying on the street. huh. more ›