79-year-old gets probation in indecency charge

A slight, 79-year-old man claimed he hadn't seen the inside of a jail in 33 years upon entering a guilty plea to public indecency Monday in a Rolling Meadows courtroom.

That's pretty good, acknowledged Cook County Circuit Court Judge Pamela G. Karahalios, who told defendant John F. "Jack" Hartman she would have preferred if he had never been inside a jail cell in all his 79 years.

Karahalios then sentenced the former Elk Grove Township man to one year probation and ordered him to submit to counseling if his probation officer advises it. The misdemeanor charge carries a possible sentence of up to one year in jail.

Cook County Sheriff's police arrested Hartman at his former home in the 400 block of West Touhy Avenue last February after receiving a complaint that he had exposed himself to children waiting for a school bus.

Karahalios ordered that Hartman have no contact with the complaining witness and that he stay away from the area.

"I don't like to put people your age in jail. But if you come back before me on a violation or on a new charge, I will have no problem sending you to jail," Karahalios said.