Man gets 8 years for 2002 Naperville home invasion
A former Chicago man accused of assaulting a wealthy Naperville couple during a home invasion nearly a decade ago was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison.
Miguel Pineda, 37, pleaded guilty to residential burglary and was sentenced in a plea deal accepted by DuPage County Judge John Kinsella, prosecutors said.
Pineda was one of four men suspected of forcing their way into the victims' River Bluff Court home on Nov. 11, 2002.
Police said the men tied up the couple and — for three hours — threatened their lives and tortured the husband, then age 63, with a carving knife while beating him with a blackjack.
The men fled in the couple's 2001 Cadillac Seville with up to $500,000 in property, including an estimated 100 guns, as well as jewelry, cash and collectible stamps, police said.
The wife, then 59, eventually untied herself and called 911. Police said the car was abandoned at the border of Berwyn and Cicero.
Authorities charged Pineda about three years later, after matching his DNA to saliva on a soda can found at the crime scene.
After he posted bond and failed to return to court, prosecutors planned to try him without his presence in 2008 — but federal marshals nabbed him in Chicago two months before the scheduled trial.
Authorities have yet to identify two of Pineda's accomplices. A fourth suspect, Victor M. Rodriguez of Chicago, has been charged but not located.