Ex-sheriff's officer is found innocent

Sitting anxiously in the same courthouse where he'd worked as a sheriff's deputy, Phillip Sorrentino looked relieved after a Cook County judge cleared him of bashing his father-in-law in the head with a hammer.

In delivering his verdict Friday, Judge James Etchingham concluded injuries to Victor Fernandez didn't add up to an aggravated battery conviction.

"I don't know what happened, but I smell a rat," Etchingham said. "We do know there was tremendous animosity between the Fernandezes and the Sorrentinos."

The fight occurred May 22, 2007, at a house on the 1300 block of Dale Drive in Elgin where Sorrentino and his estranged wife, Elizabeth Fernandez, once lived. The couple is separated and Sorrentino, then a Cook County sheriff's officer, was staying there.

Elizabeth and Victor Fernandez, a Lake in the Hills resident, testified they wanted to meet Sorrentino to convince him to move out so she and the couple's children could return. While there and before Sorrentino arrived, father and daughter changed the locks.

Prosecutors argued that when Sorrentino got home, he was so outraged he attacked Victor Fernandez from behind.

"Victor Fernandez is a mediator, a peacemaker and a patriarch," assistant state's attorney Shari Chandra said.

Sorrentino tore his own T-shirt to fake a struggle, said prosecutors who called his moves calculated.

Defense attorney Carmine Trombetta pointed to testimony by the doctor who treated Fernandez and found his wounds were superficial and did not penetrate the skin.

The judge called the medical evidence significant and cited problems with the Fernandezes' credibility.

Describing Sorrentino as a "hulking man," Etchingham said, "If he used a 3-pound hammer to hit (Fernandez) in the back of the head, there would be something more than three superficial wounds."

Instead, what likely happened was that Fernandez, offended at insults made to his daughter, picked up the hammer and was injured during the struggle, Etchingham concluded.

"He who was the aggressor and gets the worst of the fight should not be heard to complain," the judge said.

Sorrentino was dismissed by the Cook County sheriff's office after he was charged. Trombetta said it's likely Sorrentino will seek legal action concerning his termination.