Wheeling man gets prison time for burning trailers

A Wheeling man who set fire to four truck trailers loaded with landscaping equipment in Lincolnshire was sentenced to 4½ years in prison Thursday in Lake County Circuit Court.

David Hernandez-Luqueno, 29, came just short of the five-year maximum sentenced allowed under his negotiated guilty plea to arson.

Assistant State's Attorney George Pappas said Hernandez-Luqueno and his girlfriend Guadalupe Gomez, 48, both of the 400 block of McHenry Road, were upset at the owner of the trailers because he had not repaid a loan Gomez made to him.

On the night of May 15, Pappas said, the couple drove to a fenced holding lot in the 200 block of Industrial Drive and cut a lock securing the fence.

Hernandez-Luqueno then went inside the lot, Pappas said, and used a pry bar to break open the rear doors on each trailer.

Using gasoline stored inside the trailers, he set each one on fire, Pappas said.

Lincolnshire police were able to trace the pry bar and bolt cutters found at the scene back to the couple using store video surveillance tapes.

Both admitted their roles in the crime, Pappas said, and told police they were upset because Gomez was owed $5,000 by the man who owned the trailers.

Assistant Public Defender Arthur Kessler asked Circuit Judge John Phillips to give his client a term of probation because Hernandez-Luqueno has no prior criminal record.

Pappas asked that the full five-year term Hernandez-Luqueno agreed to risk when he pleaded guilty July 21 be imposed because of the risk to human life posed by the fire.

Phillips responded that he could not justify placing Hernandez-Luqueno on probation given the gravity of the crime, and warned him he is likely to be deported to Mexico when his prison sentence is complete.

Gomez has pleaded not guilty to arson and is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 8.