Carpentersville trustee fights domestic battery conviction

A Carpentersville village trustee found guilty in 2008 of accusations he hit his wife with a baseball bat was in court Thursday seeking a new trial.

Paul Humpfer, 46, appeared before the Second District Appellate Court in Elgin appealing his misdemeanor domestic battery conviction stemming from a 2007 incident in which Jacqueline Humpfer alleged her husband hit her in the legs with a baseball bat. Humpfer was sentenced to one year of conditional discharge on four misdemeanor domestic battery convictions.

Humpfer's attorney, Patrick Crimmins, said his client should receive a new trial because the judge who found him guilty failed to disclose his relationship to a former village board rival.

Kane County Judge James Hallock had sworn in Bill Sarto as village president in 2005, attended the same high school as Sarto. Both men also worked for the City of Elgin during the 1960s.

Sarto defeated Humpfer for the village president's seat in 2005.

"This situation has an overwhelming appearance of impropriety," Crimmins told appellate court justices. "Judge Hallock disclosed the relationship incrementally. It was not disclosed fully."

Illinois Appellate Prosecutor Edward Psenicka called the defense's arguments "absurd" and "ridiculous." Although both men attended St. Edward Central Catholic School in Elgin, Hallock and Sarto were in different classes, Psenicka said. In addition, he said, Sarto and Hallock worked for different departments in Elgin.

"What do you do with small counties where the judge knows everyone?" Psenicka said. "The judge wouldn't be able to hear a case."

Humpfer was denied a new trial at the circuit court level when Judge Grant Wegner ruled that perception alone did not meet the requirements for a new trial. Wegner said the defense would have to prove the relationships, or Hallock's knowledge of a potential conflict, affected the case.

Justices will issue a decision at a later date.