Domestic battery leads to 5-year prison stay

A man with a violent criminal history was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for attacking his girlfriend inside a Naperville motel.

Michael J. Fox received the punishment after pleading guilty to felony domestic battery in DuPage County.

The 38-year-old bricklayer from Warrenville must serve the prison term consecutively with a five-year sentence he received last month in Will County for sexually assaulting an acquaintance in Naperville.

Police first arrested Fox on Jan. 18, 2007, after investigating a complaint from a woman he had dated who said Fox raped her Oct. 29, 2006, in her home on the city's southwest side.

He posted bail shortly after his arrest. Then, weeks later, at 2 a.m. Feb. 28, 2007, police rushed to a restaurant parking lot along Route 59 in Naperville to meet with another woman who complained Fox attacked her.

The woman told officers she and Fox had been staying at the nearby Red Roof Inn, 1698 W. Diehl Road, for several days when he returned to their room intoxicated about 1:15 a.m. while she was sleeping.

Authorities said she told them Fox choked her twice to the point of unconsciousness, then repeatedly beat her head on the floor. She escaped to the restaurant, where someone called 911.

Police arrested Fox, while paramedics transported the woman to Edward Hospital in Naperville. She was treated for non-life threatening injuries and released that day.

At the time of both crimes, Fox was on probation for stabbing a man in 2003 during a bar fight in West Chicago. The man survived.

Fox also has other criminal convictions for numerous batteries, criminal damage to property, resisting arrest, theft, trespassing and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, court records show.

DuPage Circuit Judge Robert Anderson presided over Thursday's plea deal. In all, Fox will likely serve about six years for both the rape and motel attack, under standard sentencing guidelines.