Former cop denies beating outside bar
A former police officer choked up on the witness stand Monday as he gave his account of a 2005 altercation outside a Fox Lake tavern that left one man hospitalized and resulted in him and two colleagues facing multiple felony charges.
Testifying in his own defense against charges he participated in the vicious beating of a helpless man, ex-Spring Grove and Lincolnshire officer Jerome Volstad told jurors he acted only to defend himself and a woman who tried to break up the fight but ended in a life-threatening situation.
Volstad, 42, of Cary, said the man he is accused of beating grabbed the woman around the neck as she intervened in the dispute and held a knife against her throat.
"I thought she was going to die and I couldn't stop it," he said, fighting back tears.
The woman, one-time co-defendant Jessica Thelen, managed to break free, Volstad testified, allowing him and his companions to disarm and restrain the man until on-duty police officers arrived. He repeatedly denied accusations he beat the man with handcuffs or used excessive force to restrain him.
The account differed vastly from the one jurors heard last week from Ryan Hallett, the Wisconsin man Volstad and co-defendant Ronald Pilati, 36, of Spring Grove, are on trial for beating during the Feb. 20, 2005, altercation
Hallett, 28, testified that after a verbal dispute inside the bar, Volstad, Pilati and a third former police officer surrounded him in the parking lot at closing time, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him and then punched and kicked him nearly unconscious. Hallett said he suffered a fractured eye socket, torn eyelid and other injuries during the incident.
Pilati, who at the time of the incident was an off-duty Spring Grove police officer, took the witness stand late Monday and is expected to finish his testimony this morning. The case could be in the jury's hands later today or early Wednesday.
A third former police officer charged in the incident, Brian Quilici, 35, of Richmond, was convicted of five felony charges last year and sentenced to two years in prison.