Thursday, January 17, 2013
The Homer Glen wife of a notorious mobster doing 62 years in Leavenworth filed for divorce at the Joliet courthouse.
Sixty-two years must have been just too long for the Homer Glen wife of a mobster sent to Leavenworth to wait. Barbara Calabrese, the wife of Anthony "Tough Tony" Calabrese, filed for divorce from the mob enforcer and suspected hitman at the Joliet courthouse last week. Barbara Calabrese, 53, gave as the grounds for divorce from her 52-year-old husband that he has a "conviction of a felony or other infamous crime," according to her petition. Anthony Calabrese has more than one infamous crime—he was convicted of armed robberies in Morton Grove, Maywood and Lockport. Those cases landed him in Leavenworth until July 2061, according to the Bureau of Prison's website. Before that, he got seven years for a 2002 conspiracy to commit extortion …
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Joel Brodsky bearing the brunt of the blown Drew Peterson murder defense in a Thursday filing was one of many interesting things going on at the Joliet courthouse this past week.
When a jury finds you guilty of killing your wife, it's safe to say you might have some image problems. But in the aftermath of the Drew Peterson murder trial, defense attorney Joel Brodsky may be looking worse than anyone. First there was his very public feud with co-counsel Steve Greenberg. Then Brodsky voluntarily withdrew (or was he discharged?) from the Peterson defense team. And once he was gone, the five lawyers still representing Peterson blamed Brodsky for blowing the case and pointed out that entering into a publicity contract with a suspected wife-killer could be viewed as unsound legal strategy. And then on Thursday, Greenberg got his latest last word in with a devastating, 32-page court filing that paints Brodsky as a a …
Monday, December 10, 2012
The star witness in the Mokena coma punch trial can testify without fear of facing criminal charges.
Friday, December 7, 2012
The star witness in the Mokena coma punch trial can testify without fear of facing criminal charges.
The judge in the Mokena coma punch case cleared the way for Thursday's bombshell witness to keep testifying without fear of prosecution on perjury or obstructing justice charges. The witness, Steve Raymond of Frankfort, then returned to the witness stand to recall how he told the police "a lot of lies," including how he never saw who threw the fateful punch that put a Joliet man in a coma in July 2009. On Thursday and Friday Raymond changed his story and said it was his friend Mike Glielmi who punched 29-year-old Eric Bartels in the face outside the Mokena bar 191 South. Another of Raymond's friends, Joseph Messina, 24, of New Lenox, was charged with attacking Bartels and spent nearly two months in jail before bonding out. Yet Raymond kept…
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The trial of a New Lenox man charged with punching a Joliet man into a coma more than three years ago was back in court Wednesday.
The trial of a New Lenox man charged with punching another man into a coma started more than five months ago, and on Wednesday it was back on with testimony from three state police scientists. The scientists were questioned about blood evidence in the case against 24-year-old Joseph Messina, who allegedly beat a man into a coma outside the Mokena bar 191 South back in July 2009. Messina's trial began in June but the high-profile murder prosecutions of wife-killer Drew Peterson and Christopher Vaughn—the Oswego man who executed his wife and three children—forced the postponement of his case. Now, with both Peterson and Vaughn going down guilty, the Messina case is back on. Messina, who is free on a $250,000 bond, allegedly knocked 29-year-…
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Cooperstown catcher's drunken driving case was postponed again.
It's been a month and a week since baseball immortal Carlton Fisk was allegedly found passed out behind the wheel of his pickup in a New Lenox cornfield, but the former Red and White Sox star has yet to make it into a Joliet courtroom. Fisk was scheduled for a hearing Thursday morning but his drunken driving case postponed until Dec. 17. Fisk's lawyer, Stephen White, is fighting to get his superstar client's driver's license back and to have evidence ejected from the case. Fisk, 64, lost his license when he allegedly refused to take a breathalyzer test during his arrest Oct. 22 on charges of driving under the influence, improper lane usage and illegal transportation of alcohol. White has also filed a motion claiming the New Lenox police …
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Drew Peterson defense attorney Joseph "Shark" Lopez called blaming him and his co-counsel for helping send quadruple-killer Christopher Vaughn to prison "desperate."
Christopher Vaughn was staring at a life sentence for executing his entire family unless his lawyer somehow got him a new trial. The lawyer, George Lenard, tried to pull that off by pointing to the boorish behavior exhibited by the attorneys for wife-killer Drew Peterson and claiming it kept his client from getting a fair shake from the jury. Vaughn and Peterson's murder trials overlapped and were conducted in adjacent courtrooms on the fourth floor of the Will County Courthouse. Lenard came and went to the trial without addressing the media while Peterson's attorneys conducted press conferences throughout the day. Lenard recalled one press session and told how three of Peterson's attorneys—Joel Brodsky, Joseph "Shark" Lopez and Steve …
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Christopher Vaughn got separate life sentences for the murders of his wife and three children.
Right before a Will County judge dropped four life sentences on Christopher Vaughn, his grief-stricken mother-in-law wondered aloud why he couldn't have abandoned his wife and three children instead of killing them all. "What a coward," said Susan Phillips, the mother of Vaughn's slain wife, Kimberly Vaughn. "If you do not want your family, divorce is always the first option, or even just walking away," Phillips said from the witness stand during Christopher Vaughn's sentencing hearing Tuesday morning. Christopher Vaughn, 38, wanted to shed his family so he could start a new life in the Yukon wilderness with an unwitting stripper. In June 2007, he packed his 34-year-old wife and their three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, …
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Drew Peterson media circus prevented Vaughn from getting a fair trial, his lawyer said, and the wife-killer's attorneys didn't help things either.
First, he killed one wife, then he was named a suspect in the disappearance of another, and now Drew Peterson's very existence has mucked up Christopher Vaughn's murder trial, the Oswego man's lawyer said Monday. Vaughn's lawyer, George Lenard, said the specter of Drew Peterson hanging over the Vaughn case is just one of the reasons his convicted quadruple-killer client needs a new trial. Besides the problem with Peterson, whose own murder trial was taking place in the courtroom next-door to Vaughn's in August and September, Lenard claimed Vaughn's case was corrupted when prosecutors succeeded in "indoctrinating" one of the jurors. Lenard also said a prosecutor insulted him during the closing arguments and he accused the jury of "improper …
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Thankfully, it was a short week.
It was a three-day week at the Will County Courthouse, so there wasn't a lot going on. It was nice while it lasted, because that's all going to change next week, starting with Monday's sentencing hearing for quadruple-killer Christopher Vaughn. Vaughn was convicted in September of murdering his wife, 34-year-old Kimberly Vaughn, and three children—Blake, 8, Cassandra, 11, and Abigayle, 12—in June 2007. Vaughn is going to get life in prison. But that's next week. In the week that just ended, we saw Coal City woman Tiffany Unland, 30, fail to convince a judge to further reduce her bond from $120,000 to $50,000. Unland already got it lowered once from $200,000. Unland allegedly killed a Palatine man in a drunken crash on Route 6 in Channahon …
zibble dubering
11:32 am on Wednesday, January 30, 2013
bla, bla, bla. they must have tiny peters. That is why men try to be tought. They all have small peters. more ›