Crime & Safety
Probation For Coma Punch: Court Supervision
Joseph Messina's sentencing date was just one of the things going in court this week.
By Joseph Hosey
More than four years after he punched a man into a coma, a New Lenox man was sentenced to probation.
Joseph Messina, 25, also must turn over $20,000 of his bail money to the mother of the man he punched into a coma in July 2009, pay her $630 a month for the 30 months he is on probation, refrain from drinking and complete 250 hours of community service.
Here's what else was going on in court last week:
- Lawyers defending the youngest of four pals charged with carrying out a savage murder plot got dates to try and convince the judge to keep out evidence.
- A Lockport Township High School IT guy was sentenced to probation for having sex with a 17-year-old student.
- The day after a jury found a Joliet man innocent of charges he broke into a neighbor's home and tried to rape her, the woman sought a protective order but was denied by a Will County judge.
- A psychiatric evaluation of an Orland Park man charged with attacking his elderly, infirm father might show the son was out of his mind at the time, his lawyer said.
- A downstate woman was stranded far from home with an ex-con prison pen pal when she got sucked into an Orland Park carjacking, her lawyer said as her trial kicked off at the Bridgeview courthouse.
- A plea deal from prosecutors wasn't good enough for an Orland Park man charged with breaking an elderly woman's leg during a carjacking in a Walgreen's parking lot.
- A prosecutor said he surrendered evidence to the lawyer for a teen charged with gunning down a man he met through Craigslist.
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