From the retirement of three veteran judges in January to the sentencing of a man in a brutal stabbing case in late December, 2016 was another busy, sometimes bizarre and often sad year in Lake County Circuit Court.
Some long-standing criminal cases were resolved, including the 2012 murder of a three-month-old child in Waukegan.
Sarah Gumm, 38, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for the 2012 death of three-month old Rylan Aislee Koopmeiners, who died of a skull fracture, under a negotiated plea deal Judge Victoria Rossetti approved in February.
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Police and prosecutors accused Gumm of violently slamming the baby down on a table. She had been babysitting the Kenosha, Wis., child for six weeks in her Waukegan home before the baby died of blunt force trauma on July 27, 2012.
Nicholette Lawrence of Waukegan pleaded guilty to the 2014 murder of her 11-year-old daughter in October and faces between 20 years to natural life in prison at a January sentencing hearing before Judge James Booras.
Prosecutors said that on Sept. 3, 2014, Lawrence punched her daughter, 11-year-old Raashanai Coley, in the stomach. The blow perforated Coley’s stomach, and she died of a subsequent infection on Sept. 5, 2014. Officials said the child also showed signs of previous abuse.
Jose Reyes, a Chicago man found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a toddler in Mundelein in one of the year’s most wrenching trials, also is facing a potential January sentencing hearing. Reyes was found guilty in early November of aggravated kidnapping, predatory criminal sexual assault and possession and production of child pornography following a bench trial before Judge Mark Levitt.
Video of the Sept. 30, 2013 assault, which prosecutors said Reyes took using his cell phone, was shown during the trial.
Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Kalata said during the trial that Reyes was “a sexual predator so brazen that he just snatched her up as if she were an item at the grocery store,” while her two sisters looked on, “stunned.” Reyes, who faces a sentencing range of 24 to 120 years in prison, returned the girl to her neighborhood the same day.
In October, an Antioch woman pleaded guilty to aggravated DUI in connection with the death of a motorcyclist on Aug. 26, 2015, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Leena Ultsch, 35, pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated DUI resulting in death and one count of identity theft, and, in exchange, the state dismissed additional charges against her.
The aggravated DUI charges resulted from the 2015 crash, which killed 50-year-old Gregory Boyes, an unincorporated Antioch resident who was riding his motorcycle on Route 173 west of Linden Lane.
Before her plea, while free on bond for the aggravated DUI charges, Ultsch failed a drug test earlier this year and fled to Wyoming, where she was arrested by police, waived extradition and was returned to Lake County.
Earlier this month, a Waukegan man who threatened and abused a relative and killed three dogs, burying them in the yard of the house where he was living at the time, was sentenced to 10 years in prison this month.
Juan Rositas, 51, pleaded guilty to one count of armed violence and three merged counts of animal torture. Rositas’ sentence included an extension over the standard range due to instances of “heinous behavior and wanton cruelty,” prosecutors said.
When details of the dog killings were released, animal rights activists held protests outside of the Lake County Courthouse last year in response.
An Antioch woman who set her boyfriend on fire during a May 2015 confrontation was sentenced to 12 years in prison in February.
Officials said Deborah Roberts permanently disfigured the 43-year-old victim when she poured gasoline on him and set him on fire May 17, 2015. Roberts, 36, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery.
The victim, Chad Malanowski, said during a court hearing that “12 years is really a joke in my book.”
“If I didn’t put myself out with a garden hose, this would be a murder trial,” Malanowski said.
For instigating a crash- and injury-plagued night that a Lake County judge called “nothing less than a horror show,” Ronald Maas of Ingleside was sentenced to 22 years in prison in September.
Maas, 20, was convicted of aggravated DUI resulting in great bodily harm and several other felonies in a lengthy jury trial this summer. The charges stemmed from an off-and-on police chase throughout a swath of north central Lake County.
During the chase, which prosecutors said occurred while Maas was both drunk and high on drugs, other motorists were injured, some critically. Maas, 18 at the time, was shot in the face by police at a barricade in the Round Lake Heights area.
Finally, on Dec. 22, a Des Plaines man was sentenced to 27 years in prison after being convicted of attempted murder in the 2015 stabbing attack of a Vernon Hills woman outside of a Deer Park movie theater.
A jury found Daniel Dion, 20, guilty of attempted murder on Nov. 4 for stabbing Katie King, then 24, more than 20 times outside a movie theater while they were on a date Jan. 8, 2015.
At his sentencing hearing, the victim, now 26, told Dion she did not hate him but was fearful he might come after her again when he got out of prison. During Dion’s trial, a police officer testified that when he saw King, he believed she was likely to die, and she was in critical condition before and after surgery.
Dion entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which the juryrejected, and Judge Daniel Shanes seemed to lean toward the prosecution’s allegations that Dion literally wanted to see if he could get away with murder.
“You ferociously and viciously stabbed her time and time and time again,” Shanes told Dion as he handed down the sentence.
“The pages of history are filled with people who attempt murder and think they can get away with it,” Shanes said. “You tried. You planned a murder and an escape. But for the grace of God it didn’t end differently.”
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Criminal cases aside, January kicked the year off with rapid change in the circuit court, with the announcement of the retirements of veteran full circuit court judges John Phillips, George Bridges and Christopher Starck.
In addition to the loss of decades of bench experience among the three, the development put the spotlight on judicial diversity in Lake County, because Bridges was the only African-American ever to serve in the Lake County circuit.
The Illinois Supreme Court, which fills circuit judge vacancies, replaced the three retiring judges with associate judges Christopher Stride and Christen Bishop, and private attorney Charles Smith.
Currently, Lake County remains without a black circuit or associate judge.
Chief Judge Jorge Ortiz said that Lake County, contrary to Cook County, has had trouble attracting applications from qualified African-American judicial candidates. He said diversity remains a priority among judicial officials
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