Former police officers found guilty in beating of handcuffed man
A pair of former award-winning police officers are facing five years in prison each after a McHenry County jury found them guilty Thursday on nine of 11 felony charges alleging they participated in the brutal beating of a handcuffed man outside a Fox Lake tavern.
The jury of seven men and five woman deliberated more than six hours before returning the guilty verdicts against former Spring Grove police officer Ronald Pilati and ex-Spring Grove and Lincolnshire cop Jerome Volstad.
The two former officers, who claimed they were acting in self-defense during the February 2005 altercation outside KC's Cabin, stared straight ahead as McHenry County Judge Joseph Condon read the verdicts. About a dozen family members and supporters, many of whom sat through the nine-day trial, wept quietly and hugged.
Their defense attorneys later said they were disappointed by the verdicts and planned to seek a new trial, along with an Illinois attorney general investigation into their claims Illinois State Police tampered with evidence against their clients.
"This isn't a case of sour grapes," Volstad attorney Al Stavros said. "State police investigators have some explaining to do."
The jury found Pilati, 36, of Spring Grove, guilty of aggravated battery, unlawful restraint, mob action and obstructing justice. He was acquitted of a second obstructing justice charge.
Volstad, 42, of Cary, was found guilty of aggravated battery, unlawful restraint, mob action, obstructing justice and false personation of a police officer. He also was found not guilty of a second obstructing justice charge.
Nichole Owens, criminal division chief for the McHenry County state's attorney's office, said she will seek prison sentences for both men.
"The message from the jury is that they will not tolerate individuals hiding behind the authority of a badge to commit crimes," Owens said. "These men caused a black eye for all the good police officers out there. It makes a difficult job even more difficult."
The charges alleged that after a verbal dispute inside KC's Cabin on Feb. 20, 2005, Pilati, Volstad and a third ex-cop officer surrounded a Wisconsin man in the bar's lot just after its 3 a.m. closing. The defendants, authorities said, forced the man into handcuffs then beat and kicked him so severely he suffered a fractured eye socket and other facial injuries.
At the time Pilati was an off-duty Spring Grove police officer. Volstad had been a police officer in Spring Grove and Lincolnshire but had his law enforcement career put on hold by a back injury
Both former officers testified in their own defense this week, telling jurors they acted only after the man, 28-year-old Ryan Hallett, threatened them with a knife then took a female bystander hostage.
Jurors, however, rejected those claims, ruling through their verdicts that the defendants were not justified in beating Hallett. Unless overturned, the verdicts end any hope for Pilati or Volstad to return to their former careers as law enforcement officers.
A third ex-cop charged in the incident, former Richmond police officer Brian Quilici, 36, was convicted of five felonies last year and sentenced to two years in prison.
Jurors began their deliberations Thursday after sitting through four hours of closing arguments that painted very different versions of the altercation.
Defense lawyers agreed that the former officers jumped Hallett, but only to save the life of a woman they say he had taken hostage at knifepoint.
"They do not belong in this courtroom as defendants," Pilati attorney Thomas Loizzo said. "This (defense) chair should be occupied by Ryan Hallett. This case is a collective assault on your intelligence as a jury."
Prosecutors, however, argued that the former officers aggressively sought a confrontation with Hallett as he walked alone through the parking lot.
"The actions of these defendants were disgraceful," Assistant McHenry County State's Attorney Donna Kelly said during her closing argument. "Their actions were criminal."