Second trial OK'd for two former cops

A McHenry County judge Wednesday upheld his previous ruling that ordered a new trial for two former police officers convicted last year of beating a handcuffed man during an off-duty bar brawl.

The decision, made with no explanation by Judge Joseph Condon, sets ex-cops Jerome Volstad and Ronald Pilati on course for a second trial on charges including aggravated battery, mob action and unlawful restraint stemming from the February 2005 altercation outside a Fox Lake tavern.

Volstad, 43, of Cary, and Pilati, 36, of Melrose Park, were found guilty of those charges by a jury last year and sentenced to three months in the McHenry County jail. Condon, however, overturned the verdict in March after learning that prosecutors had failed to give defense lawyers a statement about the incident written more than a year before the trial by beating victim Ryan Hallett.

County prosecutors had been asking Condon to reconsider that decision, arguing that the statement was not relevant since Hallett wrote it in regard to the actions of Brian Quilci, a third former police officer charged and convicted in the incident, and not Volstad or Pilati.

Condon, however, sided with defense lawyers who had argued that failing to turn over any statement by the alleged victim was a violation of pretrial discovery rules.

Pilati and Volstad now are scheduled to face a second trial beginning Sept. 22. Until then, they remain free on bond.