A former prison inmate who sued state corrections officials unsuccessfully several years ago, claiming he contracted the AIDS virus from repeated prison rapes and that they had failed to protect him, is heading back behind bars.
A tearful Michael Blucker, 33, of Island Lake, pleaded guilty Monday in McHenry County Circuit Court to aggravated domestic battery, felony DUI and violating his probation on a 1999 felony theft charge.
Blucker, who is being held in the McHenry County Jail awaiting transfer to state custody, was sentenced to four years in prison by Judge Ward Arnold.
Blucker’s attorney, Camille Goodwin, said her client “appeared to be in good health” but she did not know much more about his condition.
Although Blucker has had several brushes with the law since his release from state custody in 1997, this will be his first return to the Illinois prison system since he unsuccessfully sued the state in 1995.
Asked whether Blucker will be returned to the Menard Correctional Center, the institution he lodged complaints against, a Corrections Department spokesman said, “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“We’ll do what we need to do to classify him and place him correctly in the system,” spokesman Brian Fairchild said.
Blucker filed suit in 1995 against the Department of Corrections and employees of Menard, contending that he was raped repeatedly by prison gang members when he was imprisoned there for burglary and auto theft in 1993.
He alleged that prison officials knew he was being raped but did nothing to protect him. He eventually was transferred to Dixon Correctional Center to serve out his sentence and was released in January 1997.
U.S. District Court jury in East St. Louis twice rejected Blucker’s claims. In 1997 a jury cleared five prison employees Blucker had sued but deadlocked on two top prison officials.
Blucker’s case against the officials went back to trial in January 1998, and he alleged they deliberately ignored assaults against him. A second federal jury rejected the allegations.
After his release from prison, Blucker’s criminal record was clean for the two years he was on parole.
But since 1999 McHenry County authorities have charged him with domestic battery, driving under the influence, criminal damage to property and possession of marijuana, according to county jail records.
Assistant State’s Atty. Donna Jo Maki said Monday’s sentence was “appropriate for his criminal conduct.”
The aggravated battery charge he pleaded guilty to on Monday involves allegations that he shoved his stepdaughter on Dec. 31, breaking her wrist, his attorney said. The felony drunken-driving charge stems from an August arrest.
The two charges were a violation of his probation for a 1999 theft conviction in which he stole $1,100 from a Cary gas station..
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