Bloomingdale teen sentenced for summer 2013 'crime wave'
The first member of what DuPage County Judge John Kinsella called a “two-man crime wave” that preyed on suburban businesses last summer, is headed to prison.
Nicholas Panoski, 19, of the 200 block of Oakwood Lane in Bloomingdale, was sentenced Friday to four years in prison, followed by four years of probation. He pleaded guilty last month to two counts of burglary.
Prosecutors said Panoski and his younger brother Frank Panoski, 18, threw rocks through windows and doors of businesses in Bloomingdale, Glendale Heights, West Chicago and Wood Dale and making off with cash or other valuables between June 4 and July 19, 2013.
In all, prosecutors and police officers said Friday that the brothers confessed to 15 such robberies.
“This defendant is a budding criminal mind beginning to bloom,” said Assistant State's Attorney Nicole Wilkes-English said, arguing for a six year prison sentence for the elder Panoski. “He is destined to be a career criminal.”
Prosecutors said the teens were identified through a tip from Downers Grove officers based on an alert put out by Bloomingdale police to surrounding law enforcement agencies. Bloomingdale officers met with the teens in late July and then forwarded information to Schaumburg police, who arrested the brothers on commercial burglary charges stemming from several cases in that jurisdiction.
In Bloomingdale, the brothers targeted hair salons and restaurants, as well as a building at the Bloomingdale Golf Course on Glen Ellyn Road, Wilkes-English said.
Assistant Public Defender Robert Gifford argued Panoski, who suffers from mental illness, should not be sent to prison.
“He seriously needs structure in his life,” Gifford said. “Sending him to (prison) will do nothing to stop that budding criminal mind from flowering.”
Ultimately Kinsella decided a sentence including prison, followed by probation, was appropriate.
“There is no doubt he has some serious, long-standing psychiatric issues to deal with. But, he is an adult, he is fit and he needs to be held accountable for his criminal conduct,” Kinsella said.
“I don't think you appreciate the number of people you've impacted,” Kinsella told Panoski. “You've reached into the pocket of some 17-year-old kid who now can't work because you trashed the place he worked at.”
Panoski now will be sent to Cook County to face 12 similar counts. Frank Panoski, who also recently pleaded guilty to similar charges in DuPage County, will be sentenced at 9 a.m. Nov. 17 in courtroom 4004.