Posted on August 15, 2012 in Traffic Offenses

A Skokie woman involved in a car accident in May was released on bond on August 9^th after serving almost three months in Cook County jail. The domino effect car accident ended up killing an 8-year-old named Carter Vo while he was riding his bicycle. The woman was charged with felony aggravated driving under the influence resulting in death, and misdemeanor driving under the influence of drugs because she was under the influence of marijuana and other drugs at the time of the accident.

Hanin Goma, of Skokie was driving away from her cashier’s job at the Grecian Kitchen and traveling near the intersection of St. Louis Avenue and Main Street. The 23 year old turned onto Main Street and hit an eastbound Ford Van. The force of the accident turned Goma’s car around where it struck the second grader and pushed him into a parked car. Later when she was taken to the Skokie Hospital, blood tests showed marijuana and amphetamines in her system.

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 Posted on August 12, 2012 in White collar crime

A six month police investigation has resulted in the arrest of 56 year old Lynn Pranga, a bank manager at Inland Bank’s Geneva branch. Pranga, who also serves on the Geneva Women in Business committee of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce, has been charged with financially exploiting an elderly person, forgery and theft. The alleged crime occurred when she was a bank manager at the St.Charlesbranch of MB Financial Bank.

According to a report in the Daily Herald, an 81 year old customer at MB Financial complained to the bank that a five year certificate of deposit that he held there had been changed to a one year certificate and the balance was less than what he had originally deposited. An investigation by the bank revealed that between June 2009 and June 2011, $20,000 from that account, as well as two other accounts the customer had with the bank, had been withdrawn by former branch manager Pranga.

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 Posted on August 10, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Robert Parelius, 56, of Bozeman, Montana, faces multiple charges in both his hometown and in Chicago for allegedly stalking a Chicago teenager for over a year. In Montana he was arrested and charged with sexually soliciting two boys, ages 13 and 15, who live in Chicago. He was ordered held on $50,000 bail.

According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, prosecutors told the court that the Chicago Police Department contacted the Bozeman Police Department in April, seeking their assistance in locating Parelius, who they alleged had been making phone calls and sexually soliciting the two young boys. When Bozeman Police confronted him, Parelius admitted that he had made the calls, as well as contacting three other boys.

Police reports say that Parelius, who moved to Montana from Chicago last year, also admitted that after seeing the boys playing in a park, he researched to find out who they were and where they lived. During Parelius’ arrest, police confiscated nude pictures of young boys and girls, as well as rosters for junior football teams from the Bozeman and Belgrade Montana areas, as well as the Chicago area.

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 Posted on August 04, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Todd Mandoline from Villa Park was asked to leave his ex-girlfriend’s birthday party on Saturday, July 22^nd. At some point during the night, Mandoline walked nearly two miles back to the Lombard house, in order to speak to Paula Morgan early on Sunday morning. After trading text messages for a while, Morgan stopped answering Mandoline’s text and he became enraged. Mandoline is now being charged with setting the fire that was responsible for killing Morgan one day before her 25^th birthday.

Obviously not pleased with the lack of response from Morgan for a couple of hours, Mandoline acted in the heat of the moment. “The defendant became enraged, picked up a piece of paper, twisted it up, put it in the gas tank of the victim’s vehicle parked in the driveway and took a lighter and set it on fire,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said. “The whole car was engulfed in flames. Unfortunately, the fire spread to the home as well.” The fire spread from the car, then to the attached garage, and then to the home of Paula Morgan and her 6 year old son.

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 Posted on August 01, 2012 in Theft

According to an article by the Chicago Tribune, authorities in Illinois reported on Monday July 30^th that they broke up a large theft ring. This ring was responsible for the theft of over 200 high end vehicles worth nearly $2.5 million. The group targeted luxury cars such as Cadillacs, BMWs, Land Rovers and Mercedes, which they sold for a small percentage of their value on websites such as Craigslist.

A total of 21 people have been arrested to this point in time. They live primarily on the South Side of Chicago and in the south suburbs and some are related to each other. A ringleader of the group named Dominique Henley was convicted of identity theft, forgery, theft by deception and aggravated possession of a stolen motor vehicle. He was sentenced to eight years in jail. His father was also arrested but was only sentenced to serve 30 months of probation.

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 Posted on July 29, 2012 in Uncategorized

Sergio Nava, 51, was ordered to be held on $150,000 bond after being charged with leaving the scene of an accident that caused an injury, driving without a license and several other traffic-related crimes. The victim, whose name was not released by police, was left in critical condition with injuries that included brain hemorrhaging, as well as bruised lungs and fractured ribs.Nevawas driving a minivan. The 53 year old victim was on foot.

The Chicago Tribune reported that witnesses told police they saw Nava, in an attempt to go around another vehicle, swerve his van and hit the victim, who was walking his bicycle at the time. The impact of being hit with the van propelled the victim into the air. Neva drove off in his van but then turned around and drove by the scene again before permanently leaving the scene. Neva claims that he saw the victim fall but didn’t think he had hit him.

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 Posted on July 26, 2012 in Criminal Defense

A 31 year old man is in critical condition after being shot in the back several times. One of those bullets just missed the victim’s spine. Police say that the victim’s girlfriend walked outside of her house and saw him being held with a gun pointed to his head by a man she later identified as Christopher Boyd, 30. She begged Boyd to let her boyfriend go and he lifted the gun away. As the victim began to run into the house, Boyd began shooting at him.

According to a report on CBS Chicago, police received a tip later in the day from someone who claimed that the person who committed the shooting was hiding out in a nearby home. Police received permission from the residents of the house to enter and search inside. As police were looking around, they noticed paint chips falling from the ceiling. They could also hear movement coming from upstairs in the attic. When they looked in the attic, there was Boyd, attempting to hide. He complied when told by officers to come down from the attic and was arrested.

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 Posted on July 24, 2012 in DUI/DWI

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that former Lake County Chief Judge David Hall was found not guilty of DUI charges that arose from his April 2008 arrest in Vernon Hills. However, Hall, who now suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease, which caused his retirement earlier this month, was found guilty of resisting arrest in a manner that caused the arresting office to spray him with pepper spray. Hall received the minimum sentence of 100 hours of community service, 18 months of conditional discharge, which is a form of probation, a $1,000 fine, and court costs.

In this case, Hall was taken to the hospital following the 2008 traffic stop when he complained of chest pains after being pepper-sprayed. A doctor who examined him at the hospital testified that he appeared intoxicated at the time of the incident. However, a blood sample that was drawn at the time of the incident was thrown out of evidence by the court on allegations that the sample had been mishandled. Therefore, this case contained no blood alcohol content test levels, which is usually standard evidence in a DUI case.

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 Posted on July 21, 2012 in DUI/DWI

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the Riverside police have cracked the case about a car crash that left one man from Woodbridge dead and one woman from Cicero slightly injured. Back on December 7^th of 2011, Magali Padilla, 24, and Cesar Ramirez, 26, were on their way home from dinner. Police supposed that from the scene of the crash, the 2003 Mercury Mountaineer was moving at a high rate of speed when it hit a curb and proceeded to roll over multiple times. The force of the crash ended up ejecting Ramirez from the vehicle as the SUV came to a halt on someone’s front lawn.

When police arrived at the scene they noticed a strong smell of alcohol from both Padilla and Ramirez. Padilla was given a breathalyzer test and registered a .017, which is two times the legal limit in Illinois. Both Padilla and Ramirez were transported to Loyola University Medical Center where Ramirez was pronounced deceased shortly after arrival. Yet from the date of the crash up to July 7^th of this year the authorities in Riverside were not sure if they could charge anyone.

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 Posted on July 18, 2012 in Theft

62-year-old Delfino Mora of the 6000 block of North Washtenaw was collecting cans to support his 12 children when he was beaten to death. He was attacked on the 6300 block of North Artesian Avenue early Tuesday morning, the 10^th of July. A man discovered him three hours after his beating with blood streaming out of his nostrils and vomit by his head. When authorities found him he was unconscious but still breathing. He was beaten so badly that he died the next day from blunt force head trauma. A doctor at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston pronounced him dead at 3:30 on Wednesday.

A week after the attack occurred, Chicago police had started piecing together what happened to Mora. The attack was recorded on a cell phone and that video ended up being posted to one of the attacker’s Facebook page. 16-year-old Malik Jones was identified in the video by someone who passed on the video until it reached the victim’s son. It was then that the police were notified of this video and Malik, who authorities say is a gang member, was taken into custody. He faces being charged as an adult with murder in the first degree. Jones was with two of his friends, Nicholas Ayala, 17, and Anthony Malcolm, 18, who took turns filming the attack. They also have charges brought againstthem for their involvement.

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