Time and again, we’ve heard Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain talk about the difficulties former inmates face staying on the straight and narrow when they finish serving a sentence. That’s why he’s expanded occupational training and substance abuse treatment programming at the county jail since he took office in 2017.
Now he is taking his re-entry effort a step further by offering ex-detainees a place to live while they transition back to life on the outside.
Hain’s office this month received $882,950 from the county board to buy and furnish a building on the north side of Aurora as transitional housing. The money will come from the federal COVID relief funding awarded to the county.
“It (housing) has been our biggest hurdle in ensuring successful re-entry in Kane County,” Hain told a county board committee.
The building at 131 W. Illinois St. will house offices and programming on the first floor and already has four apartments on the second floor. Each apartment will house up to two men.
“We don’t see a great deal of women coming out of custody having a housing issue,” Hain said.
Former inmates would be allowed to live in the apartments for up to six months. The first month would be free; after that, they’ll pay $750 a month in rent. The estimated $72,000 generated annually would cover maintenance costs and support services, officials say.
All tenants would be nonviolent offenders who have satisfied rehabilitation benchmarks.
“They need to get their legs under them,” Hain said.
He chose Aurora because 25% to 30% of the Kane County jail’s population comes from the city.
Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain is starting a transitional housing program for detainees upon their release from the county jail.
Mike Kenyon of Elgin is among the county board members backing the project.
“If we can help these people re-enter society, it’s an investment,” he said. “We’ll save money in the long run.”
Crossing the line
Attorneys are given a lot of leeway when making closing arguments in a trial, but there are some lines they can’t cross. And a Cook County prosecutor crossed one of them during the trial of a suburban man accused of posing as an Uber driver to sexually assault vulnerable female passengers, an appeals court has ruled.
In a unanimous decision handed down last week, the appellate court reversed Glenview resident Musaab Afandi’s 2022 conviction on three counts of criminal sexual assault and one count of aggravated kidnapping stemming from a 2016 attack.
Musaab Afandi
The charges alleged that Afandi, now 40, picked up a woman outside a Chicago bar by posing as a ride-share driver and then took her to a secluded area of Skokie, where he sexually assaulted her. A jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
At the heart of the court’s decision was a prosecutor’s remark about Afandi’s journey to the United States. At trial, Afandi testified he moved here for his safety after working with the U.S. military during the war in his native Iraq.
However, the prosecutor suggested something else to the jurors.
“He came to this country to rape women,” Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Heather Kent said, according to the appellate decision.
That remark, the appellate court ruled, compromised the integrity and fairness of the trial.
“We find the language beyond an attack on credibility but rather functions as an offensive and unwarranted appeal for the jury to fear Arab and Muslim men, to demonize Afandi as an immigrant from a Muslim country,” Justice Michael Hyman wrote. “The courtroom is no place for irrelevant and repugnant remarks that have no purpose or justification except to unduly prejudice the jury.”
The reversal sends the case back to Cook County, possibly for a retrial. But it doesn’t make Afandi a free man. That’s because about a year after his conviction he admitted guilt in three similar cases and was sentenced to six years in prison for each.
Spiritual protection
Aug. 19 was the Hindu holiday of Raksha Bandhan. Females traditionally tie an amulet called the Rakhi around the wrists of their brothers to protect them for life. “Raksha bandhan” in Sanskrit means “the bond of protection, obligation or care.”
A member of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh youth group in Aurora ties an amulet on the wrist of a police officer Monday as part of the Hindu holiday of Raksha Bandhan.
Courtesy of the City of Aurora
Members of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh youth group in Aurora decided the tradition should be expanded to protect first responders and thank them for their service. So they celebrated by tying amulets on Aurora police and fire employees.
The youths also showed gratitude in another way that police and firefighters like ‒ they brought sweet treats.
Decision on defense
A DuPage County judge could rule on Sept. 12 whether a man who reportedly claimed he was seeing demons and dragons when he stabbed his mother to death will get to argue he was insane at the time.
Kevin D. James
Prosecutors are asking the court to bar Kevin D. James from offering an insanity defense at his trial scheduled to start Oct. 22, according to court records.
James is accused of choking Patricia James, then stabbing her to death, on Jan. 9, 2018, in her unincorporated Downers Grove home. Prosecutors said at a bail hearing the next day that he then ran into traffic on 63rd Street in an attempt to kill himself or be shot by police. They also said James told a sheriff’s deputy that he saw green demons and dragons surrounding his mother, and he killed her so she could go to heaven.
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