Hearing continues in Carpentersville trustee case

Carpentersville Village President Bill Sarto could be ordered to explain his absence - and face a possible contempt finding - after failing to appear in court as ordered to testify Friday in a post-trial hearing for a village trustee found guilty of domestic battery.

Sarto says he never received a subpoena to appear at a hearing for Trustee Paul Humpfer.

But an employee of a private investigation agency claims the village president refused to accept the subpoena when he attempted to serve him Aug. 18.

Sarto - along with current and former village trustees and three Carpentersville police officials - were called by Humpfer's defense as witnesses in their effort to disqualify Kane County Judge James Hallock and win a new trial.

Hallock found Humpfer guilty of in March of hitting his wife in the legs with a baseball bat. The trustee's sentencing has been postponed three times since, most recently by his request to disqualify Hallock from the case.

Patrick Crimmins - Humpfer's defense attorney - argues Hallock's relationship to a former Carpentersville trustee, and ties to Sarto, create "an appearance of impropriety."

The judge is the brother-in-law of former Carpentersville Trustee Robert Whitehouse, who stepped down from the board in 2005. Whitehouse then nominated Humpfer as his replacement, following Humpfer's unsuccessful bid to unseat Sarto in the spring 2005 election.

Hallock also attended the same high school as Sarto, though he said the pair were not friends.

The defense had included 15 names on its witness list, but Kane County Judge Grant Wegner on Friday ruled testimony from at least 13 of the witnesses irrelevant to the substitution motion.

Wegner deemed testimony from Whitehouse and Sarto relevant.

Whitehouse testified he received a phone message through his staff at the Hampshire Park District that Sarto had called about an investigation into one of his brother-in-law's cases. Whitehouse made it clear that he did not speak directly with Sarto.

Though Whitehouse said he could not recall whether a specific case was mentioned, he said "it wasn't difficult to put two-and-two together," because he had read in the newspaper that his brother-in-law was the judge in Humpfer's case.

In a brief submitted to the court, the defense stated that Sarto will be called to testify as to the nature and extent of his relationship to Hallock and Whitehouse, and also regarding a call he made to Whitehouse alerting him to an investigation regarding one of Hallock's cases. Reached after court Friday, Sarto denied contacting Hallock or Whitehouse, and said he had not been served to appear at Friday's hearing.

"If they were trying to get me there, they never subpoenaed me that I am aware of," Sarto said. "I was never given any documents."

But Eric Moskal, an employee of Chicago-based VTS Investigations, said Sarto refused to physically accept a subpoena when approached at village hall earlier this month. The documents were then placed on Sarto's vehicle, Moskal said in an affidavit.

The hearing was continued to 9 a.m., Friday, Sept. 12 at the Kane County Judicial Center.