Couple ends suit charging abuse of son to focus on criminal case
A Huntley couple last week dropped their lawsuit against a former day-care operator charged with severely abusing their infant son, but chances are it won't stay gone for good.
The attorney for Jolyn and Joseph Schiola, said they voluntarily dismissed the suit against Eva M. Walton in order to prevent themselves from having to give pre-trial depositions that had been scheduled for last Friday.
Giving the depositions, the parents feared, would interfere with the ongoing criminal case against Walton, Schiola attorney Francis Patrick Murphy said.
"The only way to avoid that was to dismiss the case," he added.
That, however, does not mean the Schiolas are giving up. Under state law, the couple now has one year to re-file the lawsuit, something Murphy said he is certain they will do.
"They have every intention to re-file when the criminal case is over," he said.
The Schiolas sued Walton for damages of more than $50,000 in July 2005, alleging she caused more than 40 rib and leg fractures to their 2-month-old son while caring for him in May of that year.
Walton, 33, of Huntley, also is facing a criminal charge of aggravated battery to a child stemming from the allegation. The charge is a Class X felony, meaning she would receive six to 30 years in prison if found guilty.
No trial date in the case has been scheduled. Instead, Walton's defense is asking a judge to throw out a reported confession she made to authorities investigating the boy's injuries in May 2005.
Walton, her defense claims, was duped into making incriminating statements after being lured to the Huntley police station with a false promise of a lie-detector test.
A hearing on the defense claim is scheduled to take place Nov. 13 before McHenry County Judge Joseph Condon.
Very personal injury suit: A fact of life around the courthouse is that it is a place where many marriages end badly.
But few end worse than one that's the subject of a lawsuit a Crystal Lake woman filed this month against her ex-husband.
The woman, whom I'm not naming for soon-to-be obvious reasons, is suing her ex on claims that after their divorce in November 2005 he posted nude photographs of her on an Internet site named Voyeurweb. Along with the racy images were her real name and hometown.
The posting, the suit alleges, led not only to quite a bit of humiliation, but also plenty of creepy contacts at her home and work from people who saw the photos.
"(Her) distress has caused her to lose weight, suffer sleeplessness, anxiety, fear and embarrassment," the woman's attorney, Jeannie Ridings, stated in court documents.
"A reasonable person would be highly offended by the false light in which (the plaintiff) was placed by the statements and publishing of these photographs."
The suit, which seeks at least $50,000 in damages from the woman's former husband, is not scheduled to make its first appearance in court until Dec. 21 before McHenry County Judge Michael Caldwell.