An ex-firefighter from Urbana has been resentenced in a DUI case, as he failed to maintain sobriety and was involved in a second DUI while on a conditional discharge, as reported by the News Gazette from East Central Illinois.
T.F., 40, was sentenced by Champaign County Judge John Kennedy to 20 days in county jail, five months and 10 days of electronic home detention – including wearing an alcohol-monitoring bracelet – and must continue with alcohol treatment.
In the original DUI, occurring on December 2, 2009, T.F. pleaded guilty and admitted to fleeing from a Rantoul police officer – twice – when the officer tried to pull him over on U.S. 45.
Following his DUI arrest, and two months before he entered his guilty plea, T.F. retired from his position as division chief in the Urbana Fire Department. T.F. allegedly earned $81,000 a year before ending his 15-year career with the department.
In the first DUI occurrence T.F., of Stonebrooke Court, was sentenced to 18 months of conditional discharge.
After his original sentencing, on August 4, 2011, T.F. and his wife, R.F., 33, were charged in a DUI-related incident in which R.F. wrecked his pickup truck. T.F. allegedly asked his wife to lie and say that she was driving their vehicle when it crashed.
State’s Attorney Julia Rietz dismissed the charge of obstructing justice against R.F. on January 10.
Rietz said that she dismissed the charge as R.F., also a firefighter for Urbana, had been suspended by the city in response to the incident. And also because T.F. came clean and admitted responsibility for the wreck.
Urbana Fire Department has a policy, per Fire Chief Mike Dilley, not to discuss its personnel issues.
R.F. is currently on maternity leave from the department. She recently gave birth to a daughter on January 2. The couple now has three children.
Judge John Kennedy heard T.F.’s argument, that he was “very deserving of punishment” but wanted to be allowed to keep his new job in a construction company to help support his family. He further argued that he was receiving treatment and attending a church where he led a group of others that were struggling with alcoholism.
But Assistant State’s Attorney Marley Nelson asked Judge Kennedy to impose an unspecified amount of jail time due to the fact that T.F. was on a conditional discharge when the second DUI-fueled accident occurred.
Nelson also told the judge that in the second incident T.F. “convinced Mrs. (F.) to lie to police to cover that he was driving”, he had blacked out and couldn’t remember where he had parked his truck.
Chris Mellon, the Assistant Public Defender, argued that his client be given a community-based sentence so that he could continue to work. Mellon reminded the judge that T.F. pleaded guilty to his first-ever DUI and admitted that he violated the conditional discharge.
Contact a DUI attorney if you have been charged with DUI, DWI, OUI or OWI. The proper attorney can help you argue for a lighter sentence so that you can maintain your livelihood.