Waukegan man gets jail in home burglaries

A Waukegan man will spend the next three years in jail when he is not undergoing drug treatment after he admitted his involvement in a pair of house burglaries Monday.

Jesse Kutinac, 21, pleaded guilty to residential burglary during a hearing before Lake County Circuit Judge Fred Foreman.

Kutinac pleaded guilty under a section of the law that allows local incarceration and drug treatment as alternative sentences for certain crimes that would normally mandate prison terms.

Assistant State’s Attorney Reginald Matthews said Kutinac, of the 2500 block of Dunlay Court, broke into houses in Fox Lake and Lindenhurst on March 27.

In both instances, Matthews said, jewelry and electronics were taken from the residences.

Kutinac was identified as a suspect in the case when some of the stolen property was located and was traced back to him, Matthews said.

Under normal circumstances, Kutinac would have faced a mandatory prison term of at least four years for each offense.

But his plea negotiation allowed him to be considered a drug addict for sentencing purposes, and permitted Foreman to impose a sentence of probation and local jail time.

Foreman warned Kutinac during the court hearing that failure to successfully complete the drug treatment program would constitute a violation of the probation and subject him to resentencing.

Matthews said that if a probation violation were to occur in Kutinac’s case, he would seek a prison term in both cases.