Man who hit pedestrian and fled scene pleads guilty, gets prison time

A man pleaded guilty Tuesday to failing to report a crash with injury stemming from when he hit a woman with his car while she was crossing the street in Algonquin and then fled.

Paul J. Epifanio, 40, formerly of Algonquin and now living in Pingree Grove, was sentenced to three years in prison, of which he is required to serve half the time. After he’s freed, he will serve one year of mandatory supervised release, according to the judgment order in the McHenry County court. He also is required to pay $1,549 in fines and fees, an order said.

His attorney, Samuel Amirante, said Epifanio is “very remorseful and apologetic to the family.”

In a statement Epifanio submitted to the court Tuesday, he said, “I fully acknowledge that my behavior was inexcusable, and I deeply regret the significant impact it has had on their lives.”

Just after 9 p.m. on Aug. 12, 2023, authorities said Epifanio “knowingly and intentionally left the scene of an accident” at Illinois Route 62 and River Road after he struck a 25-year-old woman crossing Route 62 in the crosswalk. She suffered severe injuries, police and court documents said.

Epifanio was arrested after police found items at the scene that led them to his Chevrolet SUV parked in the lot of a multi-tenant complex in the 500 block of North Harrison Street. The SUV had damage consistent with the reported hit-and-run crash, Algonquin police said in a press release at the time of his arrest.

When police arrived, a woman who had been a passenger in the SUV at the time of the collision identified Epifanio as the driver who hit the Lake in the Hills woman as she walked across the street in a crosswalk, police said.

Police said when they arrived at the scene of the collision, the woman was lying in the street. She was taken to Northwestern Medicine Huntley and was listed in serious condition.

Epifanio was taken into custody more than two hours after striking the woman without ever attempting to report the accident. He was arrested that night on an unrelated outstanding warrant. While at the police station, he admitted to driving the vehicle involved in the earlier hit-and-run, police said.

The injured woman’s mother, who asked not to be named for this story, said her daughter was out to dinner with friends celebrating that she had just completed law school, passed the bar exam and been hired by a “prestigious law firm.”

“She was on cloud 9,” her mother said.

Her daughter was crossing in the crosswalk with two friends when Epifanio drove around another car that had stopped to let them cross and hit her, she said. Her daughter was hospitalized for months and suffered severe, life-altering injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, that will affect her for the rest of her life, her mother said.

In exchange for Epifanio’s guilty plea Tuesday, a charge of leaving the scene of a crash resulting in injury, a Class 4 felony, was dismissed, the order said.

When initially arrested, Epifanio was also charged with a number of misdemeanor and petty traffic offenses, including driving with an expired license, improper use of registration or title and driving too fast for conditions, but those were dismissed in 2023, court records show.