Lisle attorney guilty in DUI crash

A 43-year-old lawyer from Lisle was convicted of felony drunken driving in a car crash that seriously injured a Wheaton teen.

Timothy Winfield is facing up to 12 years in prison when he is sentenced, which is expected in early December, DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett said.

Winfield could also receive probation and a fine.

The jury spent two hours deliberating Wednesday night before returning with a verdict of aggravated drunken driving involving great bodily harm.

The crash happened at midnight Nov. 19, 2005. Winfield was accused of running a red light while driving his Cadillac westbound on Butterfield Road at Leask Road in Wheaton and striking a Dodge Caravan driven by a then-18-year-old Wheaton woman, according to police reports. The force of the collision propelled the woman's van about 40 yards down the road and into a nearby forest preserve, according to court papers. The woman was critically injured in the crash. She suffered a fractured pelvis, severed tendons in her hand and bruised kidneys. Shards of glass were embedded in her face and the woman's seat belt caused burns on her neck.

Blood tests performed on Winfield after crash indicated he had a .1 percent blood-alcohol content, which is over the legal limit of .08 percent, court papers showed.

Don Ramsell, Winfield's attorney, unsuccessfully tried to argue that alcohol-based antiseptic pads used by the Illinois State Police to perform blood tests contributed to the higher blood-alcohol content.

Prosecutors Mike O'Donnell and Shanti Kulkarni convinced the jury that Winfield had been drinking before the crash. Birkett praised his assistants and rebuked Winfield after the verdict was announced.

"As an officer of the court, Mr. Winfield should have known better than to drink and drive," he said. "His actions severely injured one young woman and put countless other motorists at risk."

Winfield remains free on a $25,000 bond.