Posted March 31st, 2009 by minortopics | via www.dailyherald.com
The owner of a Lincolnshire, Illinois daycare where a worker is being accused of murdering a child has also been arrested herself and charged with obstruction of justice after police say she told employees to lie to authorities about the death.
Judith Katz, 64, of the 2600 block of North Pine Avenue in Arlington Heights, is charged with obstruction of justice. She was freed from Lake County jail after posting 10 percent of a $100,000 bond. She faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Katz owned the now-shuttered Minee Subee in the Park day care center in Lincolnshire, where 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan of Deerfield died Jan. 14. She also owns Minee Subee facilities in Arlington Heights and Mount Prospect.
Authorities have charged 22-year-old Melissa M. Calusinski of Carpentersville, a teacher’s assistant, with first-degree murder, accusing her of throwing Benjamin to the floor because she was upset.
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Posted March 4th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.dailyherald.com
It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since Marilyn Lemak drugged and suffocated her 3 children in Naperville, Illinois, shaking the affluent suburb community.
She is serving a life sentence at Dwight Correction Center, the state’s only maximum security women’s prison. The 51-year-old former surgical nurse is one of 2,657 women behind bars in Illinois. Of them, 12.3 percent are in for murder.
For many, the passage of time hasn’t erased the horrific images of March 4, 1999, or the anguish left in the crime’s aftermath.
One decade later, Naperville Mayor George Pradel said it still is a hard subject to discuss.
“I know all of us still grieve for those children,” Pradel said. “I think we’ve suffered for 10 years and still have anxiety over what happened and whether it could ever occur again. I really think we, as a part of this anniversary, should try to get some relief and move on.”
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Posted February 21st, 2009 by minortopics | via www.dailyherald.com
A Kane County, Illinois judge has corrected a sentencing error that would have released a man convicted of child porn almost 2 years early.
Officials said Kenneth Mateas, 59, was erroneously credited at his Jan. 7 sentencing for 551 days of time served on electronic home monitoring - time that cannot legally be put toward his prison term.
On Friday, Judge Timothy Q. Sheldon corrected the sentencing order to reflect only four days of time served in jail toward Mateas’ four-year sentence for nine counts of reproducing child pornography.
Prosecutor Justin Fitzsimmons said the state’s attorney’s office uncovered the error by reviewing a series of complex statutes and criminal codes that ultimately showed Mateas could not be credited for home monitoring because of the nature of his offenses. Initially, attorneys for both sides thought the judge had discretion on the matter, he said.
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Posted February 12th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.dailyherald.com
The Illinois woman charged in the death of a toddler at a Minee Subee daycare center may wind up getting a life sentence.
The Lake County grand jury on Wednesday indicted Melissa M. Calusinski on 14 counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery of a child for slamming 16-month-old Benjamin Kingon of Deerfield to the ground Jan. 14, said Assistant States Attorney Steve Scheller, chief of the felony review division.
The first-degree murder charges included various prison terms based on trying to kill or inflict bodily harm to the toddler, Scheller said. The aggravated battery of the child charges also come with varying prison term lengths due to Calusinski’s age compared to the age of the child.
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Posted February 5th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.google.com
The death of the boy found on a hook in an Evanston, Illinois school has been called a suicide by the county coroner.
The boy’s distraught mother, Angel Lewis, left a school district building hours earlier, not speaking directly to reporters but saying over and over, “He should have been accounted for. He should have been accounted for.”
A janitor at Oakton Elementary School, Elliott Lieteau, said he found Aquan on the floor of the restroom and that others told him the boy had been pulled off a hook. Lieteau said he performed CPR.
Speaking before the coroner’s finding, a community activist who accompanied Lewis and acted as her spokeswoman said Lewis did not believe her boy committed suicide.
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Posted February 4th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.chicagobreakingnews.com
A 10-year-old boy found unresponsive in his school bathroom in Evanston, Illinois has died.
Aquan Lewis, 10, of Skokie, was pronounced dead at 4:05 a.m. at Children’s Memorial Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy was scheduled for later today. A janitor at the school had said the boy had been taken down from a hook in the restroom.
Aquan, of the 8600 block of North Trumball Avenue in Skokie, had been taken to St. Francis Hospital in Hospital before he was transferred to Children’s.
Elliott Lieteau, a janitor at Oakton Elementary School, 436 Ridge Ave. in Evanston, performed CPR on the boy.
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Posted January 31st, 2009 by minortopics | via www.dailyherald.com
About two weeks after a worker was charged with the death of an infant at the Minee Subee day care in Lincolnshire, Illinois, authorities shut down the center as they widen their criminal investigation.
The state Department of Children and Family Services ordered the closing of Minee Subee in the Park, 400 Marriott Drive, just after 1 p.m. Friday. Officers from Lake County Major Crimes Task Force and Lincolnshire police assisted DCFS officials and seized records, documents and computers covered under a court-ordered search warrant.
Officials indicated the action was part of the investigation into the Jan. 14 death of 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan of Deerfield.
“We had some inconsistent statements and some missing reports on their part,” Lincolnshire Police Chief Randall Melvin said. “In order to be prudent and in the best interests of the children, we felt it best to close them down until we can get to the bottom of this.”
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Posted January 21st, 2009 by minortopics | via cbs2chicago.com
A Siberian Husky in Illinois dragged a 3-week-old baby from her bed and mauled her to death.
The child, Olivia Rozek, was lying on a bed in the master bedroom of the home at 1614 Sun Ridge Drive, in the Sunridge subdivision in Bourbonnais, when she was taken from the bed by the family dog and dragged into a nearby hallway.
The child’s mother, hearing her daughter’s cries, discovered the baby in the dog’s grip, a release from Bourbonnais police said. Police got a 911 call at 5:45 p.m. reporting the attack, the release said.
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Posted January 18th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.dailyherald.com
A woman from Carpentersville, Illinois has been charged with the death of a 16-month-old, who police say died after she threw the child to the ground.
The boy was taken to the hospital, where he later died. An autopsy concluded the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head, police said.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family,” Lincolnshire Police Chief Randy Melvin said. “This is obviously a very tragic event.”
[Melissa] Calusinski, who had worked as a teacher’s assistant at the center for less than a year, was being held in lieu of $5 million bail Saturday at the Lake County jail. She is scheduled to appear in Lake County court Thursday.
Detective Adam Hyde said Calusinski told police she was having issues with some of the other children. She told police “she just lost her temper” and threw Benjamin to the ground, Hyde said.
Calusinski originally told investigators other stories, Hyde said, until she finally admitted to causing the head trauma.
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Posted January 13th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.chicagotribune.com
A boy on the Southwest Side of Chicago was mauled by a family Rottweiler in the backyard of his home.
The boy was identified as Alex Angulo, 4, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Alex was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 4:15 p.m.
There was more than one dog at the scene when police arrived, though it was unclear how many animals were involved in the attack, said Chicago Police Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti.
Mark Rosenthal, operations manager at the Chicago Commission on Animal Care and Control, said the agency took two Rottweilers, a male and female, from the scene. Later, a female poodle also believed to live in the same house was taken to the animal control facility by a resident of the block, he said.
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Posted January 6th, 2009 by minortopics | via www.chicagotribune.com
Boy, do people get all worked up over the stupidest things.
A southwestern Illinois woman is accused of reckless conduct after an angry tug-of-war with a relative over a Christmas tree seriously injured her toddler.
Madison County prosecutors charged 28-year-old Sandra Price on Monday with the misdemeanor tied to her alleged Christmas Eve wrestling with her mother-in-law at an East Alton motel over the tree each said they owned.
The 21-month-old girl injured in the tussle over the 4-foot tree eventually underwent surgery on her left eye. Doctors say it isn’t clear whether she’ll regain vision in that eye.
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Posted December 16th, 2008 by minortopics | via www.suburbanchicagonews.com
We know there’s only 8 more days left in the holiday shopping season, but that’s not important enough to leave your kid in a freezing car.
St. Charles woman was arrested Monday after she left her 20-month-old child alone inside a van while she shopped at a west-side store, police said.
The van’s engine was turned off and the outside temperature was hovering around 11 degrees, with a -8 wind chill factor at the time, authorities said.
Police were called to the parking lot of the Target store, 300 S. Randall Road, about 12:30 p.m. after an off-duty Elgin Fire Department officer spotted the boy sitting unattended in a car seat in the back seat of the vehicle, according to Deputy Police Chief Jeffrey Swoboda.
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Posted November 25th, 2008 by minortopics | via www.foxnews.com
A missing 17-year-old girl from Zion, Illinois was found by police hiding in the closet of a 24-year-old middle school teacher.
Eric Wood, 24, who teaches at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Waukegan, Ill., was charged only with obstructing justice in the bizarre case surrounding the disappearance of the girl.
The teen’s family filed a missing-person report on Nov. 8.
The following day, Lake County Sheriff’s deputies found the girl at Wood’s Beach Park house after Wood allowed them in to search for her. He initially told authorities that he knew nothing about the girl’s whereabouts.
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Posted November 11th, 2008 by minortopics | via www.chicagotribune.com
A 3-year-old Chicago girl who police believe was led away from a CVS pharmacy by a woman she met on the sidewalk has fortunately been found OK.
The girl was found about eight blocks away at Kostner and Wellington Avenues, outside in near-freezing temperatures, said police spokesman John Mirabelli. He declined to say whether she was by herself, but said she was taken to a hospital to be examined and reunited with her parents.
The girl was seen on surveillance videotape going in and out the door of the store between 2:45 and 3:30 p.m., perhaps looking at window decorations, said Police Cmdr. Michael Mealer at a late-evening news conference before she was found. She began talking to a woman wearing a white jacket and maroon pants and then was seen on videotape from another store walking with the woman on Milwaukee Avenue, he said.
She does not speak English and neither do her parents, Mealer said.
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Posted October 29th, 2008 by minortopics | via cbs2chicago.com
Former suburban Chicago school principal Daniel Markofski has been sentenced to a year in prison and 18 months of supervision for sex acts with two teenagers.
Markofski was charged in April, after police said they found him watching pornography with two teenage girls at a Super-8 Motel in Glendale, Wis. The girls, now ages 16 and 17, were in various states of undress, according to police reports.
After Markofski completes his prison and supervision sentence, he will be required to register as a sex offender for the following 15 years.
Markofski was removed from his post as principal at Spring Grove Elementary following his arrest in April. After the incident, Nippersink District 2 officials denied Markofski’s resignation request and fired him.
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