Crime & Safety
Ill-Advised Vacation: Court Supervision
A Rockdale woman took a Key West vacation while the man she ran over was dying in a Joliet hospital.
By Joseph Hosey
During her sentencing hearing in Will County court, it came out that Rockdale woman Cara Quiett had to be restrained by four cops before a blood sample could be taken from her after she ran over a man riding a bicycle, and that the sample showed her to still be legally drunk nearly five hours after the accident.
That was bad enough, but then it emerged that Quiett went on a Key West vacation while the man she hit with her car, 49-year-old James Farmer, was dying in a Joliet hospital.
Quiett, 32, posted her vacation photos on Facebook and Farmer's family happened to see them.
That was probably a bad idea. It was probably also a bad idea to have syringes and small plastic bags around when the cops show up to investigate a report of a drug overdose. But that's what the Channahon police say they found when they went to the home of former Will County Chief Judge Rodney Lechwar .
Lechwar's druggie kid, Matthew Lechwar, had only gotten out of prison nine days earlier. He had served a mere seven months of an eight year prison sentence. Both the police and an ambulance were sent to the home after someone reported Matthew Lechwar had overdosed.
Special prosecutor Charles Colburn, who had a hand in setting up Matthew Lechwar's abbreviated prison sentence, said this week he did not know if he would pursue legal action.
Here's what else was going on in court last week:
- A Wheaton man sued a former priest, a former bishop, a former auxiliary bishop and the Diocese of Joliet. Daniel Gronski claims the former priest, Lawrence Gibbs, "brutally raped" him dozens of times. The assaults occurred in the 1970s when Gronski was a teenage altar boy, according to the lawsuit.
- An elderly man was silenced when he tried to speak from the gallery during a hearing for his son at the Bridgeview courthouse. The son, Mark Williamson, allegedly beat and choked his then-76-year-old father, George Williamson. But George Williamson has said he was actually attacked by a demon with slanted eyes and a blue-green face.
- A Cook County judge was frustrated with a 2011 Orland Park jewelry store stickup case dragging out for all this time.
- Attorneys were working on hammering out a plea deal for an Orland Park man who allegedly broke an 88-year-old woman's leg during a carjacking.
- A Mokena man charged with breaking a Tinley Park restaurant manager's ribs and collapsing his lung during a dispute over the check was set to go on trial in September.
- A Stateville nurse charged with fondling a prisoner's penis and smuggling him a cell phone was taken into custody.
- A Downstate man who threatened to rape and kill Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow was ordered off to a mental hospital two months ago but has instead been left in jail.
- An Orland Park man jailed on separate sex cases refused a plea offer from prosecutors.
- A homeless man was charged with spitting on a Will County assistant state's attorney while she was trying to eat her lunchby a downtown fountain.
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