Grayslake man gets 30 years for selling heroin that caused OD death

Still proclaiming his innocence, Priest Little was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday for supplying an Ingleside woman with a fatal dose of heroin nearly a year ago.

Little, 35, of Grayslake, showed no reaction when Circuit Judge Fred Foreman handed down the sentence, the maximum available under the law. Assistant State's Attorney Rod Drobinski had asked Foreman to consider extending the sentence and imprisoning Little for 50 years, but the judge declined.

A jury in August found Little guilty of drug-induced homicide in the death of Danielle Nicholas, 20.

During the trial, prosecutors argued Little sold Nicholas the heroin that killed her on Dec. 25, 2008. She was found dead of an overdose at the Round Lake Beach house of a friend the next day.

Little, who had an attorney during the trial but represented himself during Tuesday's sentencing hearing, insisted he didn't sell Nicholas the drugs. He accused the police detective who investigated the crime of lying on the stand.

Little's efforts didn't convince Foreman, who called the defendant a "drug entrepreneur" who made a bad business decision by selling the heroin to Nicholas.

Continuing the metaphor, Foreman told Little the price for such an illegal economic endeavor was the liquidation of "the Priest Little drug business."

Nicholas' mother, Michelle Schaps, was the prosecution's lone witness during Tuesday's hearing. Choking back tears, she talked of how Nicholas was "ripped" from her family and how she's been lost since her daughter's death.

"My life ended the day my best friend, the one person I existed for, died," Schaps said.

Little called four character witnesses: his mother, a sister, his fiancee and his fiancee's mother. All tried to paint him as a good man and a loving father.

But Assistant State's Attorney Suzanne Willett went after each witness by asking about Little's extensive criminal history and, in the case of his sister, her own arrest record.