Drew Peterson back in court in murder-for-hire plot

Editor's note:  This Shark believes clever Drew most likely dropped wife #4 into the bottom of an open grave in a cemetery awaiting another persons burial.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com   Drew Peterson back in court in murder-for-hire plot

AP Photo/M. Spencer Green US Video Buy AP Photo Reprints Multimedia Timeline of the Drew Peterson case CHESTER, Ill. (AP) -- The former suburban Chicago police officer convicted of killing his third wife and suspected in his fourth spouse's disappearance is returning to court on charges of trying to hire someone to kill the prosecutor who helped put him in state prison. Drew Peterson was charged in February with soliciting an unidentified person to find someone he could pay to kill Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow. The 61-year-old former Bolingbrook police sergeant has been in prison since being convicted in 2012 in Kathleen Savio's bathtub drowning death eight years earlier. His fourth wife disappeared in 2007. The murder-for-hire charges were filed in Randolph County, where Peterson is an inmate at the Menard Correctional Center. Peterson will appear in court Tuesday.

Nursing assistants plead guilty to battering elderly woman

Nursing assistants plead guilty to battering elderly woman

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Posted: Jan 09, 2015 3:46 PM CSTUpdated: Jan 09, 2015 3:50 PM CST

 

Jacqueline Santos, Chemyra Barnett | photos from Kane County state's attorney's office

ST. CHARLES, Ill. (Sun-Times Media Wire) -

Two northwest suburban women pleaded guilty Friday to battering an elderly woman while working as nursing assistants at a St. Charles care home.

Chemyra A. Barnett and Jacqueline T. Santos, both 19, worked as nursing assistants on March 11, 2014, at the Rosewood Care Center in the 800 block of Dunham Road, according to a statement from the Kane County state's attorney's office.

They were assigned to help a 97-year-old woman suffering from dementia get back into her bed using a medical device to lift her, according to the statement.

Instead, Barnett used a nylon strap from the device to repeatedly slap the woman in the face while Santos used a cell phone to record the attack and posted the video online, prosecutors said. The video showed the victim crying out, “Don't! Don't!” while Barnett and Santos laughed.

The woman was not physically injured in the attack, according the state's attorney's office.

Barnett, of the 300 block of Watch Court in Elgin, and Santos, of the 1300 block of Timber Lane in South Elgin, each pleaded guilty Friday to one count of misdemeanor battery, prosecutors said. They each agreed to a sentence of two years' probation and 100 hours of community service.

They were also ordered to pay $500 each to Kane County Senior Services and undergo anger management evaluations, prosecutors said

Still alive, Tamposi trust legal wrangling heads to federal court

This time the argument is over the actions of a lawyer

By Bob Sanders

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Published: 09.16.13

Litigation over the trusts set up by the late millionaire developer Sam Tamposi spilled over into federal court last week in a filing against the former trustee’s Chicago law firms.
In the latest legal development in more than two decades of acrimony, the current trustee of the Elizabeth M. Tamposi trust filed suit against the law firms of Butler, Rueben, Saltarelli & Boyd of Chicago, Ill., and Faegre Baker Daniels of Minneapolis, Minn., alleging that they benefited or might benefit from the misconduct of one of their attorneys, Julie Shelton, the trust’s former trustee, for creating such legal havoc that it might have resulted in the beneficiary of the trustee, Betty Tamposi – a former official in the George H.W. Bush administration and a former state representative -- losing million of dollars.
The trust was built by Samuel Tamposi Sr., one of New Hampshire’s most successful developers, who died in May 1995, but not before splitting his fortune – worth nearly $21 million at the time, and almost $150 million by the end of 2008 – in separate but equal trusts to his six children.
In setting up the trusts, Tamposi stipulated that the trusts be controlled by his eldest and youngest sons. And he also stipulated that anyone who challenged the arrangement would be cut out of his estate.
Betty Tamposi challenged it from the start, arguing that such a clause, if carried to the extreme, give any trust administrator unlimited power, and in a settlement got her own trustee in 2006. Tamposi chose her friend, Julie Shelton -- who agreed, despite having little experience. Shelton promptly continued – or perhaps escalated -- the controversy, demanding that the estate sell off its interest in the Red Sox to raise money for Betty Tamposi’s expenses, which included such things as her kid’s college tuition and Shelton’s legal expenses.
The matter went to probate court, which – in a decision upheld by the New Hampshire Supreme Court in January -- removed Shelton, ruled that Betty Tamposi forfeited her interest in the trust (though her children would still benefit) and added that Betty Tamposi must pay back whatever income she received since 2007, plus the other side’s legal fees. The fees alone totaled more than $3 million.
However, the court did say that Shelton – and her law firm – could collect some $745,000 their own fees. The latest filling is over those fees.
Shelton worked for the Butler firm until November 2008, before switching to the Baker firm during the time when she “sought, among other things, to effectively dismantle the Samuel Tamposi Trust and the EMT (Elizabeth M. Tamposi) Trust.”
Butler billed the trust for at least $128,000, and Faegre Baker billed it for $396,000.
The probate court has yet to rule on the fee amounts.
The law firms are “vicariously liable” for the negligence of Shelton, and Shelton should repay all she gets as well, according to the complaint, which was first filed in August in state Superior Court, but has since been moved to federal court, thanks to a motion made by the Chicago firm’s lawyer, John C. LaLiberte, a Boston attorney, who was unable to be reached by deadline.
The EMT trust is represented by David Eby of Manchester-based Devine Millimet

US lawyer gets year in prison in Refco fraud

Jul 15, 10:13 PM EDT US lawyer gets year in prison in Refco fraud

US Video Buy AP Photo Reprints NEW YORK (AP) -- A Chicago-area lawyer convicted in a $2.4 billion fraud that led to the collapse of a giant independent commodities firm was sentenced Monday to a year and a day in prison. Joseph P. Collins, 62, of Winnetka, Ill., was sentenced in Manhattan federal court after his November conviction on charges including conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Collins was formerly the chief outside attorney for the now-defunct financial services company Refco Group Inc. Refco, once the nation's largest independent commodities firm, filed for bankruptcy in 2005. Its former CEO pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Others convicted included one of Refco's former owners, a former chief financial officer and a former executive vice president. Collins maintained that Refco executives never revealed the fraud to him. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that Collins was a lawyer "deeply and corruptly enmeshed in coordinating and concealing the massive accounting fraud that ultimately led to Refco's collapse." Prosecutors said Collins played a pivotal role in the fraud to falsify Refco's financial statements by hiding an enormous debt the company held from Refco's investors and auditors. They said Collins and lawyers at his firm drafted documents on at least 17 occasions from February 2000 through October 2005 to help the company conceal the size of its debt. Collins was originally convicted in 2009, but the conviction was reversed last year by the federal appeals court in Manhattan.

Illinois man sentenced for slicing elderly Hammond man’s throat

Illinois man sentenced for slicing elderly Hammond man’s throat

By Ruth Ann Krause Post-Tribune correspondent February 28, 2013 2:28PM

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Updated: February 28, 2013 3:20PM

Lake Superior Court Judge Clarence Murray sentenced a Hazel Crest, Ill., man to 45 years in prison for attempted murder.

Murray told David Jay Harman that the unprovoked, brutal attack on the 77-year-old victim whose throat was cut from ear to ear made the defendant the worst of the worst, but the judge stopped short of imposing the maximum 50-year sentence

Harman, 48, a former Marine who was honorably discharged in the 1980s, said evidence introduced at trial doesn’t paint a complete picture of what happened. “There are things that still need to come out,” Harman said. I’m not a bad person.” Harman said he plans to appeal.

Evidence presented by deputy prosecutor Judy Massa showed that Harman went to the home of J.R. Jenkins in the 7600 block of Oakdale Street in Hammond. At the time, Harman was dating Jenkins’ third ex-wife.

Harman and Jenkins got into an argument. Harman punched Jenkins, knocking off his glasses, then kicked him, punched him and broke a wooden chair over his head before he slashed Jenkins’ throat. Jenkins went to a neighbor’s house for help before he walked three doors down to another former wife’s home.

Massa argued for a 46-year sentence, citing the brutality of the attack and the severity of the injuries Jenkins sustained. Jenkins was hospitalized for about two months, developed complications and had to undergo additional surgery and physical rehabilitation. “Mr. Harman’s actions were actions of a monster and not of a Marine,” Massa said.

Defense attorney Adam Tavitas noted his client has minimal criminal history and that Harman helps his mother. Tavitas said Harman’s family is confused by the nature of the crime because it’s not in line with his character. “This is not the person that they know,” Tavitas said.

http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/news/18540841-418/illinois-man-sentence-for-slicing-elderly-hammond-mans-throat.html