Judge upholds Fox Lake man's 25-year prison term

A Fox Lake man lost his bid Friday to have a judge throw out the 25-year prison sentence he is serving for slitting the throat of his estranged wife's boyfriend nearly a decade ago.

Steven J. McMillan filed his petition to have the sentence voided more than five years too late for a court to consider it, McHenry County Judge Joseph Condon wrote in a one-page ruling dismissing the request.

Under state law, the judge ruled, McMillan had three years from the time of his conviction in April 1999 to ask that it be voided. He did not file the request until October 2007 and offered no proof that missing the deadline was anything but his own fault.

"Defendant does not allege facts showing that the delay was not the result of culpable negligence," Condon wrote.

McMillan, 44, pleaded guilty in 1999 to charges of home invasion and aggravated battery stemming from a December 1998 attack at his wife's Pistakee Highlands home. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dismissed an attempted murder charge and limited his sentence to 25 years in prison, instead of the 30-year maximum.

Police said McMillan broke into the residence about 2:30 a.m. and slashed the man across the throat as he lay sleeping. The victim, a 33-year-old Bolingbrook man, needed 10 stitches to close a 2½-inch gash.

McMillan, who authorities said was angry over his wife's new relationship, fled the scene but was captured the next day at the Milwaukee home of a relative.

In court papers filed last year, McMillan claimed his constitutional rights were violated because the judge sentencing him in 1999 did not fully warn him he would have to spend as much as three years on parole when released from prison.

That, McMillan argued, constitutes a violation of the plea deal he struck with McHenry County prosecutors.

McMillan currently is serving his sentence at the Logan Correctional Center near Springfield. His earliest possible parole date is July 2011, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.