Wheeling man convicted in 2018 crash that killed Mount Prospect teen
A Rolling Meadows jury took less than an hour late Friday to find a Wheeling man guilty of the 2018 high-speed collision that claimed the life of 16-year-old Alyssa Lendino of Mount Prospect, who was about to begin her junior year at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights. The crash seriously injured Alyssa's father Anthony, younger sister, Amanda, and her mother, Michele.
Jurors found Adam Grunin, 32, guilty of reckless homicide in Alyssa Lendino's death and aggravated reckless driving for injuries to Amanda, then 12, who suffered fractures to her collarbone, spine, pelvis and both legs that necessitated four surgeries and required her to learn how to walk anew. Anthony Lendino's injuries included rib and spinal fractures and a lacerated spleen. Michele Lendino received facial lacerations that required stitches.
"This destruction, this devastation, should not have happened," said Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Shilpa Patel during closing arguments in which she described "lives changed in an instant" because of Grunin's "conscious disregard."
Grunin's white Hyundai Sonata was traveling south at 107.5 mph on Milwaukee Avenue about 2 p.m. July 21, 2018, when it struck the Lendino family's Chevrolet Equinox, which was slowing as it approached a stoplight at the intersection of Milwaukee and Hintz Road in Wheeling, according to authorities.
Prosecutors said Grunin was fleeing another crash that had occurred moments earlier in front of the Wheeling Fire Department station about 3,100 feet north of the Hintz Road intersection. Grunin, who had no illegal drugs or alcohol in his system, was not charged with that crash or with fleeing and eluding.
"He chose to drive his car recklessly, and his choice caused their (the Lendino family's) injuries and her (Alyssa's) death," Patel said.
Defense attorney Steven Weinberg, who described the case as one of the most tragic he's encountered, disagreed. He said the crash resulted when Grunin, who was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2005 and was taking prescribed anti-seizure medication, suffered a seizure while driving. Defense expert Dr. Andres Kanner, an authority on neurology and epilepsy from the University of Miami, said the seizure cost Grunin control of his body, left him confused and unaware.
"That's what happens. You lose awareness of what's going on," Kanner testified, after reviewing police and medical records, witness accounts, video and other evidence. "He had no recollection of what happened after he was driving and had turned onto Milwaukee Avenue. He was confused up to two days after the collision, which is something I attribute to having a seizure."
From Grunin's medical history, Kanner opined he "is having more frequent seizures than he is aware of."
Several weeks before the crash, an electroencephalogram test showed abnormalities in Grunin's temporal lobes. His physician increased his medication and ordered additional tests but did not restrict his driving, said Kanner, who acknowledged under cross-examination that he could not determine when on the day of the collision Grunin's seizure occurred.
Grunin next appears in court on Feb. 19.