Posted on June 22, 2013 in Criminal Defense

The whole country was turned upside down not too long ago when the Boston Marathon was bombed and there were many injuries and three deaths. The entire nation followed the news and awaited the results of the FBI’s search for those who caused it, then when and if the FBI could catch them and shut down any of their future plans.

Although much of the fuss has died down following the Boston Marathon bombings, terrorism has not stopped. Recently in Illinois, a teenager was charged with and pleaded not guilty to terrorism, according to ABC World News.

The 18-year-old boy, Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, is from a Chicago suburb and has supposedly attempted “to join an al-Quaida-linked militant group fighting Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria,” reported ABC news.

The alleged terrorist stood in court recently with his attorney, who pleaded not guilty on his behalf. The criminal act that Tounisi was charged with is attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group and lying about the operation when questioned by federal authorities.

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 Posted on June 20, 2013 in Alimony

Last month we covered a high asset divorce case involving a wife who was awarded 20 percent of her husband's bonuses between $50,001 and $100,000. The wife recently appealed her case calling the court's division of her husband's assets an "abuse of discretion."

In a decision that became final today, an appeals court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in not awarding the wife any of her husband's bonuses above $100,000.

Divorce courts in Illinois have broad discretion in dividing property and allocating maintenance awards. Appeals courts generally do not overturn maintenance awards absent a clear abuse of discretion, which is defined as an "arbitrary, fanciful or unreasonable" ruling. This is a high burden for an appellant to meet, especially because unreasonableness is defined as a decision that is so outside of the norm that "no reasonable person could find as the trial court did."

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 Posted on June 19, 2013 in DUI/DWI

Being arrested and charged with a DUI can be a frightening experience particularly for a person who had no knowledge that a crime was committed. An incident that took place back in December resurfaces in recent news when a woman takes a plea agreement.

The 34-year-old woman admitted to driving while under the influence. Her actions caused the death of a 60-year-old man driving a scooter. However, she claims she did not know she had hit anyone. She thought she had hit the curb only.

Some might say that she was fully aware of what she was doing, getting behind the wheel under the influence and with a revoked license. In addition, the woman denied driving the vehicle but later confessed.

The police say that the woman ran a red light and hit a man on a motorcycle who later died of his injuries. She was later arrested the day of the incident at about 7:00 am, two hours after the incident. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.

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 Posted on June 15, 2013 in Criminal Defense

The Chicago Sun Times recently reported that an Illinois police chief from the southwest was accused in early May of two felony misconducts for supposedly misusing a pickup truck that was seized in a drug case.

56-year-old Caseyville Police Chief J.D. Roth was accused of not only driving a 2003 Dodge Dakota Ram 1500 pickup truck for police business, but also for personal use instead of selling the truck in an auction as he was instructed to do.

Roth was instructed to get bids from local car dealers and sold it for $7,500 to a dealer whose owner is friends with Roth. He then bought the car back soon after. The state law requires, however, that the vehicle must be sold for the benefit of the public.

Roth has also been accused of personal use of luggage that he bought with public funds.

Although both the luggage charge and the truck charge are each punishable by a fine of $25,000 and five years in prison, Roth’s attorney is confident that his 26 year police career will help to prove Roth’s innocence.

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 Posted on June 14, 2013 in Divorce

Newspaper Tycoon Rupert Murdoch has filed divorce from his third wife, Wendi Deng. Murdoch and Deng have been married for 14 years and she recently made headlines for physically defending her husband from would-be pie thrower.

The incident happened when the 82-year-old media mogul was testifying before Parliament in London regarding the phone-hacking activities of some of his reporters. During the testimony a comedian ran at Murdoch with a shaving-foam pie but Deng, who was sitting behind Murdoch, quickly leapt up and smashed the comedian's hand.

"Mr. Murdoch, your wife has a pretty good left hook," said parliamentarian Tom Watson, who had been grilling the businessman just minutes earlier.

Chinese-born Deng has a masters degree from Yale and met Murdoch while working for one of his Hong Kong-based TV companies. She served as Murdoch's interpreter as he toured the Chinese mainland and he quickly launched a feverish courtship.

Deng gave birth to two children during the marriage and it is unclear how much of Murdoch's $11.2 billion fortune they stand to receive in this split. It is also unclear whether the couple signed a prenuptial agreement, but many experts say that is inconceivable that they wouldn't have one given Murdoch's extreme wealth and prior divorces.

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 Posted on June 11, 2013 in Criminal Defense

Being in the criminal system can be a scary enough situation for anyone. Your future is dependent on what your attorney brings to the table. How it is received by the judge, jury and prosecutor can determine your future. It might seem that too many people have your life at their disposal. Ensuring you are properly represented is crucial, and having an attorney who clearly understands both the defense and the prosecutioncan aid your case immensely.

The level of difference between a prosecutor and a defense attorney is evident in the way each does their job. A prosecutors job is to prove the defendant’s guilt; without proof, the defendant goes free. If evidence is available, the prosecutor will use whatever it takes to win the case. The research, the knowledge of emotional ties to a jury, and ability to appeal to a judge’s reasoning are all tactics a prosecutor uses to win a guilty verdict. On the other hand, a defense attorney has to just implant a seed of doubt to get a not guilty verdict. They do not have to prove anything. They can appeal to emotions as well, but it is to find doubt in the prosecutors story, rather than fact.

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 Posted on June 09, 2013 in Prenuptial Agreements

A Rock County court recently upheld a prenuptial agreement in a high net worth divorce case.

The wife filed for divorce in September of 2009 and the husband found the prenuptial agreement nearly a year and a half later. The husband sought to enforce the prenuptial agreement and a trial court found that it was valid and enforceable with the exception of the maintenance waiver provision. The court then awarded the wife permanent maintenance of $6,515 per month.

In finding the maintenance waiver unenforceable, the court cited the fact that the couple had been married for over 30 years, during which time the husband established and maintained control over the wife's business, personal and retirement finances.

The court was unsympathetic to the wife's arguments that she would be unable to maintain her country club membership at her level of alimony, characterizing her former standard of living as "extravagant." The court did note however that the wife was drawing a significantly lower level of Social Security payments because of a plan contrived by the husband and his accountant to divert her social security contributions back to the family business.

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 Posted on June 07, 2013 in Criminal Defense

The United States seems to have a great government and justice system, but it can only be kept that way if the people working for our country are kept in check just as any business would keep its employees in check. Recently, Illinois found that it had a bit of work to do to keep it’s law enforcement system running smoothly when it was found that evidence from rape cases were not being submitted for testing in labs.

The Illinois State Police were sent 51 sexual assault kits from previous cases to the Illinois State Police for investigation after being found untested in the Robbins Police Department evidence room according to Tom Dart, Cook County Sheriff.

Dart said, “The victims should know they will have their cases heard, and they will be treated like they should have been treated. My goal is to bring justice to these folks.”

He added that the untested kits date back as far as 1986 and they were found alongside guns that were supposed to be sent into the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to trace the ownership for cases as well.

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 Posted on June 03, 2013 in Uncategorized

A criminal record is serious and can hurt your future employment prospects. If you have a certain type of arrest, probation, or supervision on your record with no conviction, the state of Illinois does leave it possible for you to get your record expunged under Section 5.2 of the Criminal Identification Act (20 ILCS 263 0/5.2). Expungementeliminates a case brought up against you from your record as if it never existed. Expungement can be a good way to start fresh after an incident.

However, in order to have your record expunged, you must have had no prior criminal offense or municipal ordinance violation.If you have been convicted of either, your records can be sealed, so that your record is not public knowledge.

Expungement or sealing of records can only be applied in criminal cases and not in cases such as traffic offenses, divorces and orders of protection. In cases where you do not qualify for expungement, you can seek out the governor for a pardon for your conviction, in which case your record will be erased for that case. This, however, is quite rare.

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 Posted on May 31, 2013 in Hit and Run

A 40-year-old man from Chicago was involved in a fatal hit-and-run on March 21 and has been charged with “leaving the scene of an injury/death accident, driving with a revoked license, not giving the right of way to a pedestrian and not having insurance,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

Fernando Marin was driving down South Homan Avenue when a woman and her sister were crossing the street. Marin tried to turn left as the traffic lights were changing from green to yellow, but he did not yield to the woman. Ida Quintanilla, 58, was fatally injured in the crash. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where she was pronounced dead. A 35-year-old woman was also injured in the crash. However, her injuries are not life-threatening. Marin continued driving after the crash and fled the scene of the crime without slowing down, according to court documents.

A witness managed to get the license plate number for the vehicle that was involved in the hit-and-run, and authorities were able to trace it to Marin. It turned out that the owner of the truck was the suspect’s girlfriend. There was blood on the car and its grill was cracked.

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