Northwest suburban Cook County court cases of 2014
A Hoffman Estates family devastated by an early-morning attack in April 2009 waited five years for justice. They got it in 2014 in the form of three life sentences for 26-year-old D'Andre Howard, convicted in June of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of Conant High School senior Laura Engelhardt, 18; her father Alan Engelhardt, 57, and her maternal grandmother Marlene Gacek, 73. Howard was also convicted of the attempted murder of Shelly Engelhardt, Laura's mother and Alan's wife, who survived her injuries and testified against Howard who - at the time of the murders - was engaged to oldest daughter Amanda and is the father of her child. Amanda and the then-toddler were not injured in the attack, the worst of its kind in the Northwest suburbs since the 1993 Palatine murders of five employees and two owners of a Brown's Chicken & Pasta.
Jurors took just 98 minutes to convict Howard, who defense attorneys claimed was legally insane at the time of the murders, a result of years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect that prompted authorities to remove him from his home at age 5 and resulted in a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder when Howard was 6 years old.
Prosecutors claimed anger, jealousy and a desire for control motivated the attacks, which resulted from Howard's mistaken belief that Amanda was cheating on him.
"I stand here now to let you know that good has triumphed over evil once more," said Shelly Engelhardt during her brief victim impact statement.
"The wounds and pain that you inflicted on us have not weakened our family and will not define our future," she said. "We have the gifts of faith and wisdom from my mother, compassion and caring from my husband, and integrity and bravery from my daughter. How they lived and what they gave to and did for others is the legacy we will carry forth."
The year also saw the disposition of several other older cases.
• Among the most gruesome was the April 12, 2011, death of 55-year-old George Nellessen, a widowed father of two, at the hands of his son, Matthew Nellessen in the family's Arlington Heights home.
Prosecutors say anger and greed motivated Matthew Nellessen, 23, to rob and kill his father over Social Security from his late mother (George Nellessen's wife), which Matthew Nellessen felt he was owed. To that end, he enlisted Marlon Green, 24, a Chicago man the younger Nellessen met during a stint at Cook County Jail. Green arranged from his friend Armon Braden, 24, to supply the pellet gun used to intimidate George Nellessen. Green and Armon Braden pleaded guilty to armed robbery and were each sentenced to 22 years in prison. Armon Braden's younger brother, Azari Braden, drove the men to the Nellessen's Wilshire Lane home, but never entered. Charges against him are pending.
During the trial, Green testified that during the robbery, Matthew Nellessen became angry and claimed his father never loved him and loved his sister more. The younger Nellessen struck his father - who was bound to a chair with his face covered - in the head four or five times with a bat, Green said. After determining that George Nellessen was still alive, Matthew Nellessen stabbed him in the neck with a kitchen knife, Green said.
In March, jurors found Nellessen responsible for his father's death, they also found his behavior heinous and indicative of wanton cruelty which resulted in Cook County Judge Martin Agran imposing a term of life in prison at Nellessen's June sentencing saying "I do not see an opportunity for redemption or rehabilitation."
• Emotional testimony during the trial of a Hanover Park woman charged with strangling her newborn moments after giving birth to him in a Streamwood Salvation Army Store restroom brought witnesses, jurors, courtroom observers as well as defendant Jessica Cruz to tears.
Cruz, 22, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 6-pound, 11-ounce boy after authorities say she put him in a plastic bag, tied it around his neck and placed him in a trash can covered with paper towels.
A Cook County assistant medical examiner testified that the baby was born alive and died from strangulation. She listed his death as homicide. An infant forensic pathologist testifying for the defense claimed that insufficient evidence existed to determine whether the baby was born alive and she listed his death as undetermined.
With jurors unable to agree on a verdict after more than 2½ days of deliberations, Judge Bridget Hughes declared a mistrial in November. On the eve of the retrial in early December, Cruz pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated battery to a child. In exchange, prosecutors recommended a 15-year sentence which will likely be imposed in January.
• A Chicago gang member pleaded guilty in May to the June 2010 murder of Jean Wattecamps, 52, an American Eagle baggage handler, who was stabbed to death hours after he treated one of his attackers to dinner. Marko Guardiola, 41, pleaded guilty in May to binding and stabbing the man described as kind and generous.
In exchange for his guilty plea, Guardiola was sentenced to 33 years in prison in May. A Rolling Meadows jury convicted Guardiola's teenage co-defendant Edwin Paniagua, 19, of unincorporated Elk Grove Township, in August after deliberating about one hour. Prosecutors acknowledge that Paniagua did not deliver the fatal blows, but he bound the victim's feet, kicked him and retrieved from Wattecamps' bedroom the knife that Guardiola used to kill him and was therefore an equal partner in the crime.
Paniagua was sentenced in November to 26 years in prison. He still faces charges that he solicited a Cook County Jail inmate to murder Guardiola.
Gang-related murders
• An admitted gang member from Arlington Heights was sentenced in December to 45 years in prison, the minimum sentence for a first-degree murder conviction involving a firearm.
Jurors in November convicted Jesus Sanchez, 20, of the May 1, 2013, shooting death of 23-year-old Rafael Orozco who was walking his dog Gizmo through his Wheeling apartment complex and had stopped to talk with some neighbors under a streetlight about 9 p.m. that night.
Prosecutors said the bullet was meant for a then 17-year-old gang member who had quit Sanchez's gang to join another.
The married Orozco, who was not in a gang, was struck in the back. His mother, Irma Gallo in her victim impact statement, described him as a kind person who always had a smile on his face.
"He was my son," she said turning to face Sanchez's family while holding a photo of Orozco. "He was my son."
• Another trial involving the gang-related shooting death of a bystander also concluded with a conviction last year. Jurors convicted admitted Aurora gang member Miguel Hernandez of first-degree murder and attempted first degree murder after he fired six shots into a car, striking 5-year-old Eric Galarza Jr. in the head. Eric, his parents, younger siblings and an aunt were pulling out of the driveway of the family's Elgin home about 7 p.m. Oct. 11, 2011, when Hernandez, 30, opened fire.
Prosecutors say the shooting was payback and the intended victim was Eric's father, Eric Galarza Sr. - a member of the same gang as Hernandez - who in 2006 worked as a paid informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In that capacity, the elder Galarza wore a wire and informed on his fellow gang members. In exchange for his cooperation, authorities dismissed several drug charges against Galarza.
Hernandez was sentenced to 78 years in prison following an impassioned argument from Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Karen Crothers, who urged Judge Bridget Hughes to "send a message to this defendant and every other would-be assassin that if they raise a firearm in the name of a street gang and kill one of our children, they will never again walk the streets of our community."
At long last
• A former Schaumburg man who fled to his native South Korea 16 years ago to avoid the consequences of a car crash that claimed the life of 43-year-old Sonia Naranjo, pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and aggravated DUI in November.
In exchange for his plea, Kyung Ho Song, 67, was sentenced to five years in prison. He must serve at least 50 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. With credit for 339 days in custody, he will likely be released in less than two years.
Song's blood-alcohol level registered .181 after the crash which occurred about midnight on Oct. 11, 1996, on U.S. Route 20 in Bartlett. The legal limit at the time was .10. He fled to South Korea in July 1998, several months after he entered a guilty plea.
Bartlett Sgt. Geoffrey Pretkelis began investigating his whereabouts in 2011. Assisted by local, state and federal authorities including the FBI and the Department of Justice, Pretkelis located Song who was arrested in December 2013 and extradited to the U.S. in March 2014.
• Nearly 10 years after her son David Koschman's death, his mother, Nanci Koschman, finally got the vindication and the apology she strove so tirelessly for when Richard J. Vanecko - nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley - pleaded guilty in January to involuntary manslaughter in the April 2004 death of the 21-year-old Mount Prospect man.
Koschman died after Vanecko punched him in the face following an altercation outside a Chicago bar about 3:15 a.m. April 25, 2004. Koschman fell and struck his head on the pavement. He died from his injuries 11 days later.
In exchange for his guilty plea, Vanecko, 39, was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 30 months probation and ordered to pay the Koschman family $20,000. He also apologized to Nanci Koschman in open court.
"This is all I ever wanted, was for someone to say, 'I'm sorry,'" she said after the hearing. "I knew it was as difficult for him to say as it was for me to hear."
The disposition came after years of legal wrangling during which allegations surfaced that Vanecko received special treatment from Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors because of his family ties. That resulted in the appointment of special prosecutor Dan Webb, who later issued a report following a 17-month investigation that indicated neither Daley, his family, staff or security detail tried to influence the investigation into Koschman's death.
A U.S. District judge in August dismissed Nanci Koschman's civil rights lawsuit charging Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors with a cover-up because the statute of limitations on filing the suit had ended.
Coach acquitted
A Cook County judge in January acquitted former Maine West High School soccer coach Michael Divincenzo of misdemeanor hazing and battery charges stemming from incidents prosecutors say occurred in 2012. Former freshman players claimed varsity players tripped, poked and hit them as part of an initiation. Prosecutors insisted Divincenzo was responsible for creating an atmosphere where such behavior was condoned.
Judge Jeffrey T. Warnick acquitted Divincenzo, a 1994 Maine West graduate who taught at the school for 10 years before he was fired in December 2012 after the allegations surfaced. Warnick found that the coach had no knowledge of the players' behavior and did not condone their actions.
Family prevails
A Cook County jury in February awarded the family of an Arlington Heights man killed in Kuwait while unloading cargo for the U.S. military $6.65 million in the family's wrongful-death suit against military contractor Cav International Inc. Cav operated the military base in Al-Mubarek Air Base in Kuwait City where Bruce, 64, a longtime United Airlines employee, was on special assignment when he fell from a mobile conveyor belt operated by a Cav employee.
While the employee's back was turned, he lowered a handrail, causing Bruce - a native of Scotland and a longtime U.S. citizen - to fall to the tarmac 20 ft. below, said family attorney Tim Cavanagh. Bruce left behind his wife Patty, a St. Viator High School teacher, and adult sons Michael and JP. The family brought the suit to vindicate Bruce, a safety-conscious man, who they insisted was not responsible for his fatal fall.
Politician disgraced
One of the year's biggest politics-related bombshells had nothing to do with campaigns or elections. It came in April with the announcement that former state Rep. Keith Farnham, 67, faced child pornography charges resulting from a search federal authorities conducted of his home and office computers, one of them state-owned, which uncovered 2,765 images of minors engaged in sexually explicit acts. The Elgin Democrat had resigned his seat about a month earlier about a week after agents conducted their search.
Farnham originally pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty early in December. He remains free on bail until his sentencing hearing on March 19.
Federal cases
• A 64-year-old Buffalo Grove man, who planned to kidnap, torture and kill a Riverside man and who - along with an accomplice - outfitted a Chicago storefront for that purpose, was sentenced to life in prison following his February conviction on conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit extortion and several weapons charges.
Steven Mandell, a former Chicago policeman, was convicted of the 1993 murder of an Illinois trucking company owner and sentenced to death. That conviction was overturned, as was a Missouri kidnapping conviction involving Kansas City drug dealers. Federal prosecutors described Mandell, also known as Steven Manning, as a "psychopath" who masterminded a "truly barbaric crime."
• At the time of his September 2009 escape from armed Cook County State's Attorney investigators while being transported to the Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows, Robert Maday, 44, was already facing federal charges related to a series of bank robberies in Lake Zurich, Buffalo Grove, Arlington Heights, Huntley and Bloomingdale. The Northwest suburban manhunt his escape sparked concluded about 24 hours later after Maday carjacked two women, robbed a Bloomingdale bank and led police on a car chase which concluded with a crash and Maday's arrest. Sentenced to 30 years in 2013 for the original bank robberies, Maday was sentenced in 2014 to an additional 32 years for the daylong crime spree, which the federal judge ordered be served consecutively to the previous sentence.