Family Law and Personal Injury Attorneys
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Police Officer Sentenced in 2009 Fatal Hit-and-Run
A former Chicago police detective was sentenced to eight years in prison for a 2009 charge of aggravated DUI that left two young men dead, according to the Chicago Tribune. Joseph Frugoli, who at the time was a 18-year veteran of the force, was ironically working as a homicide detective at the time of the accident. After slamming his Lexus SUV into the back of the victims’ car, which was disabled near Roosevelt Road, Frugoli fled the scene. “Prosecutors said Frugoli had been drinking at a nearby tavern and his blood-alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit,” according to the Tribune.
Both Andrew Cazares, 23, and Fausto Manzera, 21, were killed on site after being hit by Frugoli, and the scene was a fiery one, according to the Tribune. “Manzera’s mother sobbed and screamed following the sentencing. She contended Frugoli didn’t get a longer sentence because he had been a Chicago police officer.” The idea that police officers can get away with murder, or lessened sentences, isn’t a new one. A 2007 special Tribune report considered the rash of Chicago police officers that shoot innocent bystanders, and found that it’s not rare that police officers receive lesser sentences or none at all.
Dennis Quaid files for divorce
Dennis Quaid had recently filed from his wife, Kimberly Buffington-Quaid, only six short weeks after Kimberly filed for a legal separation. This divorce case was filed in Los Angeles on November 30, according to writers at US Weekly.
Quaid stated that he is fighting for joint legal and physical custody of Zoe and Thomas Quaid, the Dennis’s and Kimberly’s five year old twins. He also said that he has offered to pay spousal support to Kimberly.
In March of 2012, Kimberly Buffington-Quaid filed for divorce from Dennis, from quickly withdrew the petition after only two months. In October of 2012, however, she filed for the legal separation from Quaid. At the time of the separation filing, Buffington-Quaid requested joint legal custody of their two children, but sole physical custody. These children are the same twins that came very close to dying as newborns in 2007 when staff at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center accidently gave them an overdose of Heparin.
Family Feud Turns Into Violent Crime
A cousinly spat went horribly wrong when one cousin stabbed a man to death with a pair of scissors, incited by a shattered Marvel Comics drinking glass, according to the Chicago Tribune. Erik Jensen, 45, is being held on $800,000 bail and has been charged with the first-degree murder of Raymond Ogara, 43. Jensen, a married father, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was play wrestling with his cousin before “things got out of hand.” Prosecutors stated that the cousins were drinking alcohol out of the collector glasses that the victim dropped, causing it to shatter. It was after the glass broke, the two had a verbal argument that then became physical. According to the Tribune, “when police arrived they found Ogara dead on the living room floor in a pool of blood with a pair of scissors next to his body.” He was pronounced dead on arrival due to multiple stab wounds in his neck.
Grocery Employee Nearly Loses Hand to Meat Grinder
An employee of a supermarket near 143rd Street and Wolf Road in Orland Park almost lost a hand in a workplace accident on November 3, according to a recent story in the Chicago Tribune. The employee was processing meat when his hand became stuck in a meat grinder.
The Orland firefighters tried to disassemble the machine in order to take the injured employee to a hospital. However, they quickly found out that the only way they could get to the hospital was with the grinder still attached to the man. The firefighters did what they could to take apart the grinder and disassembled it into the smallest component they could. The employee was taken by ambulance to Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox while his arm was still inside the steel grinder.
If the firefighters had removed his hand, the bleeding could have been fatal. In the hospital, the fire crew was able to break the grinder after which the doctors stepped in and stopped the bleeding. The man lost all five fingers of his hand and might lose the hand entirely.
Spike in Divorce Rate for Baby Boomers
It’s generally accepted that the divorce rate has steadily increased as a result of a more loose society, one in which young people cohabitate more often before marriage, and one that has turned away from the traditional core values of American society. Yet the world for which the Baby Boomer generation purports to long, could actually be undermined by the Boomers themselves, according to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune. According to a National Center for Family and Marriage Research study coming from Bowling Green State University, “boomers account for more than 25 percent of divorces” today. In 1990, according to the Tribune. “fewer than 10 percent of divorces included spouses age 50 or older.”
Alcohol raises risk of injury, but also proven to raise survival rate
A study from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health found that injury patients were less likely to die of they had alcohol in their blood. The more alcohol there was, the more likely the patient is to survive.
The UIC injury epidemiologist Lee Friedman, author of the study, says this study is not to encourage people to drink alcohol. Alcohol intoxication, even the smallest amount, is very closely associated with an increased risk of injury.
After an injury has occurred, however, intoxication seems to have a pretty substantial protective effect on the body, according to Friedman, who is also the assist professor of environmental and occupations health sciences at UIC.
Illinois divorces getting tougher to split up assets
Many pieces of property are very difficult to split in a divorce, like bank accounts and stock portfolios. Although the assets that go to each party are up for dispute, each piece is essentially interchangeable and valued.
Those property items, however, are the easier ones to divide up. Items of sentimental value are tougher to negotiate, including family heirlooms and items from deceased parents and grandparents, even professional sports franchises, and art have been responsible for dragging out divorce proceedings.
It is recommended that going into a divorce with the knowledge of how difficult it is to divide assets will help you avoid arguments that will cause the divorce to get drawn out and raise legal fees.
Prenuptial or postnuptial agreements are always great ideas if there is a particular value of interest that you want to ensure stays in your own name and does not end up with your ex-spouse. Most couples, however, do not create these agreements and once divorce comes close, it is most likely too late to agree with your spouse about certain property items staying with your own family name.
Click It or Ticket taken more seriously for holiday season
The Grayslake Police Department is urging all motorists to buckle their seat belts this holiday season, no matter where you are sitting in the vehicle.
In a continued effort to promote traffic safety, the Grayslake Police Department participated in the Click It or Ticket Thanksgiving holiday campaign. The campaign ran for two weeks in the middle of November, ending on Nov. 25.
The campaign warned motorists that whether they were traveling in town or across the state, if the driver or any passenger in the vehicle was not seat-belted, a ticket very well may have been issued to the driver.
Starting on January 1, everyone in the vehicle, no matter the age or seating position is required to wear a seat belt.
Kim Kardashian’s divorce trial getting closer
Speaking for Kim Kardashian, her divorce attorney shared that the star wants to move on with her life, but is unable to do so because her divorce case is not yet ready for trial.
Kardashian’s and NBA player Kris Humphries’s attorneys were told by the Superior Court Judge Stephen Moloney to return to court in mid-February so a trial date can be set to either dissolve or annul the infamous 72-day marriage. He indicated that if all depositions and pre-trial investigations were completed by February 15, a trial could be held early in the year.
Humphries, a power forward for the Brooklyn Nets, is pursuing an annulment based on fraud, but is awaiting documents from companies that handle Kardashian’s reality shows.
Kardashian prefers a traditional divorce. Her attorney, Laura Wasser, has cited the short duration of the marriage and the prenuptial agreement as reasons for a quick resolution.
Wasser claimed that, “there’s a fishing expedition going on here,” about Humphries and his attorney’s case.
Paralyzed Ironworker Receives $64 Million Jury Award
A Cook County jury has awarded a former iron worker $64 million for a fall that snapped his neck, leaving him paralyzed. In 2007, Ronald Bayer of Monee was working on a warehouse addition in DeKalb when he fell from a beam and landed on a concrete foundation 15 feet below. The 41 year-old third generation iron worker has been left paralyzed from the chest down with very limited ability to move his arms.
According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, Bayer’s attorney said there were no safety cables provided on the steel beams for workers to hook onto. The attorney for the general contractor, Panduit Corp., of Tinley Park, argued that Bayer’s employer required workers to hook a harness into an elevated basket. Their defense was that Bayer chose not to do so this time. The jury found Bayer 20% at fault and Panduit 80% at fault for the fall.
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