Schaumburg man gets 8 years for carjacking, break-in

At a sentencing Thursday afternoon, Cook County Assistant Public Defender Helen Tsimouris told the judge that her client was trying to turn his life around.

Cook County Judge Hyman Riebman seemed skeptical, noting that since 2008, John Egelston “has spent more time in the penitentiary than out.”

“What a waste,” said Riebman, who added to the 22-year-old’s total when he sentenced the Schaumburg man to eight years in prison in exchange for Egelston’s guilty plea to armed robbery, burglary and aggravated fleeing for a carjacking and the smash-and-grab burglary of a Hoffman Estates electronic store during the early morning hours of July 20, 2010.

Prosecutors say Egelston and his co-defendant, Alexander Hoegner, approached the victim as she exited her car in a Hoffman Estates apartment parking lot at about 2:15 a.m. While one of the defendants threatened the woman with a knife, the other demanded her car keys and cellphone, said Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Rowe.

The men drove off and went to a Hoffman Estates electronics store, where they smashed a glass door and stole digital cameras, cellphone chargers and other items, Rowe said. In the meantime, the victim alerted police, who issued a bulletin describing the stolen car. A short time later, Streamwood officers encountered the vehicle, driven by Egelston, and a high-speed chase ensued, Rowe said. It concluded when Egelston crashed the car into some trees and shrubs, Rowe said.

Egelston’s background includes convictions in 2009 for aggravated robbery and burglary, for which he received concurrent sentences totaling four years, prosecutors said. He also received a three-year sentence for burglary in 2008. He received credit for the 311 days he has spent in custody since his arrest. He must serve at least 50 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, Tsimouris said.

Hoegner, 21, pleaded guilty to carjacking and burglary in February and was also sentenced to eight years in prison.

Riebman described the defendants’ crime spree as “something out of a movie.”

“But life is not a movie,” he told Egelston.