Chicago man sentenced for Arlington Heights theft

A 40-year-old Chicago man pleaded guilty Wednesday to bilking an Arlington Heights woman out of thousands of dollars.

Rony Mikhail, of the 6800 block of Devon Avenue, was sentenced to three years in prison in Rolling Meadows in exchange for his guilty plea to the class 2 felony, which carries a possible sentence of up to seven years in prison. He received 181 days credit for the time he has spent in custody since his arrest.

Mikhail told the female victim, who is a friend of his wife’s, that he was assisting a lawyer in investigating a workman’s compensation claim, prosecutors said during the defendant’s bail hearing last August. They did not say if the woman was the person making the claim.

The woman wrote several checks to Mikhail who prosecutors said presented her with several documents bearing a lawyer’s name. Mikhail never worked for the lawyer, prosecutors said.

At the time of his arrest, Mikhail was on probation for a 2007 theft conviction, prosecutors said.