Glendale Heights man gets 30 years for stabbing death at graduation party
A Glendale Heights man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Thursday for stabbing a man to death in a drunken rage at a high-school graduation party in 2015.
DuPage County Judge Alexander McGimpsey also sentenced Alberto Jimenez, 23, to two years in prison on an aggravated battery charge for stabbing the man's girlfriend.
Jimenez had just graduated the day before from Glenbard West High School. He showed up at a friend's party in an unincorporated area near Glen Ellyn. According to sheriff's deputies who testified Thursday, Jimenez showed up drunk and started picking fights with several people at the party, including hitting someone with a folding chair. They also testified witnesses said the victim, Tehavis Price, and the girlfriend tried to help Jimenez, pulling him out of fights.
Jimenez demanded a knife from a friend and, when refused, forcibly took a pocketknife from him. He stabbed the woman in her left side as she was in her car, and stabbed Price seven times - three times in the heart - when he came to her defense.
Jimenez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated battery in January; prosecutors agreed to not ask for a murder sentence of more than 31 years. Murder is punishable by 20 to 60 years in prison, unless it is exceptionally brutal or heinous, in which case natural life is available.
Thursday, Assistant State's Attorney Demetri Demopoulos requested 31 years for the murder. Jimenez' lawyer requested 20.
Jimenez will have to serve 100 percent of the murder sentence, and then at least half the battery sentence. He received credit for the five years he has been in jail since his arrest.
"This senseless tragedy of an incident like this at what is supposed to be a joyous event is a cruel contrast," McGimpsey said.
Demopoulous had a former member of the DuPage County sheriff's office gang crime unit testify that he knew Jimenez from previous incidents, and that Jimenez had identified himself as a member of a gang.
But an officer from the Kendall County jail, where Jimenez was held for four years, testified that most of the time, Jimenez behaved so well he was allowed the privilege of joining the jail's inmate work program.