Glendale Heights man gets 18 years for sixth DUI
A Glendale Heights man who fled a DuPage County courtroom as his jury trial was about to begin in August was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in prison for his sixth DUI.
Rogelio Nava, 46, was convicted of the offense in absentia and later surrendered. He faced up to 30 years in prison because of his lengthy driving record, which also included about a dozen convictions for driving without a license.
“The only thing that will stop you is keeping you locked up for a very long time,” Judge Kathryn Creswell told the defendant as she imposed the 18-year term. “You think the law doesn’t apply to you.”
Nava’s most recent drunken driving arrest was on May 16, 2010, after he made an improper turn and refused to stop for Glendale Heights police about 1 a.m. He later registered a .127 blood-alcohol level, greater than the legal threshold of .08.
Nava opted to take the case to trial but, after seeking repeated delays, fled Creswell’s courtroom the day his trial started in August, leaving his attorney to defend the case without him.
Creswell, who issued an arrest warrant after Nava fled, noted that the bench warrant was just one of 23 served on Nava since the 1980s. She said the defendant’s license was suspended about 10 times and revoked about six times. He also has convictions for drug possession, battery, driving with open alcohol and possession of alcohol in public, among other offenses, Creswell said.
Nava also had about 11 prior convictions for driving without a license or driving on a suspended or revoked license. In 2003, Creswell said, he was charged with driving 75 mph in a 40 mph zone after his vehicle went onto a sidewalk where a group of children were playing. And in two DUI cases from 1989, he registered blood-alcohol levels of .31 and .26, she said.
“When people read about this case in the newspaper they may wonder how it is you continued to drive,” she told Nava. “The answer is ... having a driver’s license that’s valid isn’t something that matters to you.”
Defense attorney Joe Colsant sought a minimum six-year term, arguing his client turned to alcohol after witnessing his father commit suicide in 1993. He said Nava came with his family to the U.S. from Mexico as a legal resident about 30 years ago but had no formal education and was kicked out of high school.
Colsant argued Nava only hurt himself by fleeing court, and asked the judge not to consider that in crafting a sentence.
“He wasn’t running from this trial,” Colsant said. “He didn’t know any better. He was scared.”
In a statement to the court, Nava apologized repeatedly to the judge and his family. “I feel sorry not for me but for my mother,” he said. “I just hope I’m out someday to do what my father told me to do: take care of her.”
Assistant State’s Attorney Shanti Kulkarni called Nava a “threat to everybody who has to drive on the roads.” The prosecutor asked for 28 years, arguing Nava rebuffed even his own family’s attempts to get him into alcohol treatment and was likely to offend again.
“What is the likelihood of the defendant in any way will be rehabilitated?” Kulkarni asked. “Frankly, the record shows that likelihood is minimal if not nonexistent.”