Robber gets seven years in prison for role in Cary home invasion

A Lake County man was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for breaking into a Cary apartment last year, holding its occupants at gunpoint and robbing them of their cash, phones and drugs.

Deon Hollandsworth, 21, of the 1600 block of Lorelei in Zion, admitted to a charge of armed robbery stemming from a Sept. 29 holdup in the 200 block of North Second Street.

Hollandsworth, who authorities say shot himself in the leg while leaving the robbery scene, also agreed to testify against co-defendant Ricardo Perez.

Perez, 18, of Racine, Wis., is sitting in a Wisconsin jail awaiting extradition to McHenry County.

Hollandsworth could have faced up to 30 years in prison if found guilty after a trial.

"Going to trial presented too big of a risk - at least that's what we decided," said Hollandsworth attorney Colin MacMeekin.

Police said Hollandsworth, Perez and a third man, Quentin Brooks-Slovacek, were attending a party in the Cary apartment complex when they launched a plan to rob the victims of what they believed would be a significant amount of money and drugs.

Brooks-Slovacek, authorities said, knocked on the apartment's screen door and was let in by an occupant who knew him. Hollandsworth and Perez, both wearing masks, followed him in, pointed a gun and demanded cash and drugs from the people inside the apartment. They left with an undisclosed amount of money, two mobile phones and about two grams of marijuana, prosecutors said.

Witnesses reported hearing a gunshot shortly after the robbers left the apartment. Two days later, authorities said, Hollandsworth showed up at a Wisconsin hospital claiming he had been shot in the leg by an unseen assailant while walking in a Zion park.

Slovacek-Brooks, 25, of Zion, was sentenced in April to six months in the county jail and two years probation after pleading guilty to an obstructing justice charge in connection with the robbery.