Crime & Safety
Judge's Son Does Hard Time For Heroin: Court Supervision
Former Will County Chief Judge Rodney Lechwar's son did a full seven months out of an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the manufacture or delivery of heroin.
By Joseph Hosey
Back in November, the son of former Will County Chief Judge Rodney Lechwar was looking at a possible 30 years in prison for the manufacture or delivery of heroin.
That sounds like a lot of years, but the cops said 30-year-old Matthew Lechwar had quite a bit of heroin on him when he was arrested. And Matthew Lechwar was heading to prison for the second time on a felony drug charge.
But at the last minute, special prosecutor Charles Colburn reduced Matthew Lechwar's charge and asked Will County Judge Edward Burmila to recommend him for a special boot camp program. The special boot camp program would allow Matthew Lechwar to get out of prison in a matter of months.
Burmila sentenced Matthew Lechwar to eight years in prison but also made the recommendation for bootcamp. And Matthew Lechwar got out of prison last week after serving less than seven months. Matthew Lechwar's retired judge father has failed to respond to calls for comment on his son's case.
Let's look at what else was going in court last week:
- A man was sentenced to six months in jail and four years probation for secretly recording his naked teenage stepdaughter. Timothy Zak, 46, also must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
- A woman sued the Village of Bolingbrook and the Bolingbrook Park District. She claims she was knocked unconscious when she hit her head on a Pelican Harbok Aquatic Park water slide.
- An Englishman living in Chicago was charged with trying to buy a 12-year-old girl for sex. Charles Bocock, 35, allegedly set up the meeting at a Plainfield Dunkin' Donuts after making contact with a man on Craigslist.
- A 23-year-old single mother from Will County is suing the Rosati's Pizza restaurants in Montgomery and Oswego. Shannon Pugh claims her boss sexually harassed her and that she was fired after she complained about it.
- The attorney for a man charged with strangling his mother, then stabbing her repeatedly and hammering a knife into her chest with a baseball bat filed papers claiming he may have "lacked substantial capacity to appreciate" what he was doing at the time.
- Stateville Correctional Center nurse Holly Logan was indicted on charges of fondling an inmate's penis and slipping him a cell phone.
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