Woman facing prison for two crimes

A Gurnee woman faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to two crimes against her father.

Nina Greco, 21, pleaded guilty to theft and identity theft during a hearing before Lake County Circuit Judge John Phillips.

Assistant State's Attorney George Pappas said Greco, who had several addresses in Chicago, entered her father's house in Gurnee on April 7, 2008 while he was in the hospital recovering from a car accident. A friend of her father saw Greco, Pappas said, and called police because she knew Greco was not allowed inside her father's house. Police arrived and found Greco with several checks from her father's landscaping business and his personal data assistant that she admitted she intended to steal.

She was charged with theft and released on bond to await trial.

While still free on bond on that charge, Pappas said, Greco again entered her father's house sometime around April 1 of this year. She took her father's business checks and forged 134 of them between April 1 and Aug. 11 for a total $61,860.

When police arrested her, Pappas said, Greco told them some of the checks were written to pay off a $15,000 debt she owed a heroin dealer in North Chicago.

Phillips told Greco on Thursday that because she committed the second crime while free on bond for the first, any sentences she received would have to be served consecutively.

Public Defender Arthur Kessler told Phillips he intends to argue for sentences involving probation and drug treatment because both crimes were fueled by Greco's drug addiction.

Phillips revoked Greco's bond in both cases and ordered her to return to court Jan. 15 for sentencing.