Illinois Criminal Defense

As a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago, it seems that every day I get calls from potential clients who have been arrested for retail theft, or what you may call shoplifting.  Most of the people are very nice and are quite embarrassed.  These men and women are also concerned about the potential consequences of an arrest for retail theft offense. To be honest they should be, it can be quite trying.  For any of you out there considering taking merchandise from a retail store without paying for the items, don’t do it!  For those that have already been arrested for shoplifting / retail theft crime, then the following summary will provide a look at what may lie ahead.

In Illinois, retail theft is defined as taking items offered for sale in a retail store without paying the full price of the items.  The most common violation of this law involves individuals that conceal items and then walk out of the store without paying for the items.  Some individuals pay for some items while concealing and not paying for other items.  A less common violation involves switching of price tags, and then paying a price lower than the store offers the item for sale.  Though they may seem like minor crimes, all of these violations are criminal offenses and can lead to arrest, prosecution, and even county jail.

Most people arrested for retail theft are charged with a Class A misdemeanor.  In Illinois, a Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 or both.  If the person arrested stole items with a retail value of over $300 they can be charged with a Class 3 felony, punishable by from 2-5 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections and a fine of up to $25,000 or both.  If the person arrested has a prior retail theft on their record, the prosecutor can elect to charge the person with a Class 4 felony, punishable by from 1-3 years in prison and fine of up to $25,000 or both.

Fortunately, most people arrested for retail theft are not given the maximum sentence or fine.  In fact, if properly represented, there are many options available to stay out of jail, avoid a large fine, and possibly have everything expunged and erased from your record.  For example, in Chicago IL and other Cook County courts, first time offenders of retail theft are sometimes offered an opportunity to take part in a theft deterrent program.  This program typically involves a one-time, four hour class. The purpose of which is to discourage first time offenders from shoplifting ever again.  At the conclusion of the class, each person attending receives a certificate of completion.  At the next court date, your criminal defense lawyer presents the client’s certificate of completion and the case is then dismissed.  This is a great opportunity to avoid a lifetime of living with a criminal conviction on your record. Even convictions as minor as shoplifting can present problems for current or future employment, or make it difficult for getting approved by the board or association in a place you would like to reside.

Should you find yourself facing criminal prosecution for retail theft / shoplifting, you should immediately consult with an experienced criminal defense lawyer.  A skilled and knowledgeable criminal attorney will guide you more easily through the process and give you the best opportunity to avoid jail, large fines and a criminal record.

Originally published here.

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:25:47 -0600

Subject: Racism is alive and still kicking until we united D’Anne Burley Radio Talk Show Host on Racial Profiling and worse 2007

Racism is still here but Don Imus is not the issue the most important one is below and I am black and can get no policing agent to investigate corruption and or criminal acts. I am also seeking letters for others who are black who have had racist issue in the times in order to show patterns on this issue. Blacks themselves are on hold and have opened the backdoor to allow for these comments to comeback, there is a greater issue that affects us and thats the lack of creditabitity we have and the lack of police power whereby if there are crimes in our neighborhoods and we report them the police do not respond as they would with whites and its far worse now because wer are in 2007 and we are still not fighting agressively to change this why?

This is hot and just off the press and here is the growing concern here is the mindset going out and not undercover please read!

Trained to Use Hatred

BERLIN, Germany (AP) — A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television.

The video, coming after scandals involving photos of German soldiers posing with skulls in Afghanistan and the abuse of recruits by instructors, seemed likely to raise more questions about training practices in Germany’s conscript army.

“We can no longer talk about an isolated case,” said Lt. Juergen Rose of the Darmstaedter Signal, a group of current and former army officers and sergeants who independently review military procedures.

“Things like this don’t happen in the army on an everyday basis, but unfortunately in recent years there have been a number of comparable incidents.”

The Defense Ministry said the video was shot in July 2006 at barracks in the northern town of Rendsburg and that the army has been aware of it since January.

“We are currently investigating the incident,” said Florian Naggies, a spokesman for the army and Defense Ministry.

He did not identify the instructor or the soldier, who are shown in camouflage uniforms in a forest.

The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways … Act.”

The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.

The existence of the video was first reported on the home page of the German news magazine Stern on Friday and excerpts of the video were aired on the news television channel n-tv on Saturday.

According to Stern, the 90-second video had been posted on a Web site used by soldiers to exchange private videos. A soldier who used the site alerted his superiors, the magazine reported.

The video is the latest embarrassment for the German army. Eighteen army instructors are currently on trial for allegedly abusing and humiliating 163 recruits in 2004. Last year, newspapers published photos of German soldiers in Afghanistan posing with a skulls — including one who exposed himself while holding a skull.

My father Dan Burley was the real father of the Rap Industry thou now this point of history has been twisted to others Dan Burley authored the Harlem Handbook of Jive, and was involved in the then musican entertainment industry with Langston Hughes, Cab Calloway and others who made the then Black Hiphop JIve via smooth talk within rythms, some of the music today is great while others are just making a buck and the style and way much is being done is modeled out of the white industry because the money always flows upward. I got letters within my archieve of how many major publications in the past wanted to reform Blacks in music style and dress to make they act in a way that was or acceptive. But we think today that the style we have is not built around another agenda please! While we are in the music and in the dress, we are losing careers, jobs, and business via nafta and other hidden agenda’s we can not see and or will not be a part of, and much of this is because our Black Leadership is not on this issues.

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I am one of the very few Blacks if there are any within the media addressing the issue of the WTC, Ok City, Waco ( which had 40 or more blacks living there) and all of the other world issues that if it comes into being Blacks think its bad now just want. Because whites are complainting and are effected. Look at New Orleans folks there still in some areas have no water or electric, and they are lying about the grants. So if we are no gathering dollars and committing to one another where are we going to be in the future.

There is the issue of driving while Black, going to work while black, reporting crimes while black. And the black press is not going there why? what is controlling our media whereby stories are not getting out again? I am hearing this from all over the place I am speaking of radio and television reporters.

And here I will stop and have you read the following again if you see acts of terrorism while black and they do nothing then why do you think they will come to your home and investigate your daughter being raped and or a murder without saying that its a crime that you committed yourself – Peace! D’Anne Burley

I am a former Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County in Illinois, I know much about law enforce and clout, and before that I worked over 35 yrs within Corporate America as an Accountant, Computer Programmer/Analysis, did some actuary work relating to removing employees who got close to retirement age, Developed Businesses, I worked as a para legal from Friedman and Koven which was the second in it’s day Law Firm in the World within Conflict of Interest international, also for United States Gypsum, Navistar, FMC Corp, Harris Bank, First National Bank, Argonne National Lab’s as Assistant Editor in the Bio lab, and many other larger than live Corporations within their Controllers Dept and World Headquarters, and in the Mortgage Industry of over 8 years seeing already formed terrorist cell operating from withn the Suburb of Palos Hills, Palos Heights, Broadview, Chicago and other neighoring communities. The scandal involved the use of International Drivers Licenses to falsify Identity and create other false ID’s such as Drivers License, Corporations, Bank Accounts in order to move and laundery money into Jihad and Al-Qauda cells all over the globe.

Drug Trafficking occured over Operation Mountain Express, which had netted over 52 mega tons of drugs, and drug making material to use to place on the streets and in the hands of mintories, our youth date rape drugs and other nightmare subtances to fund Terror across the world. In Illinois the Illinois trucking scandal was involved because the truck were involved within a operation to move the drugs, laundered money and also guns in and out of the hands of criminal within the KKK and aryan nation and other hate groups. All who were being used as part of the funded Bin Laden Operation, and that was really the involved of Bin Laden. Sept 11, 2001 was a part of a mock terrorist drill which was designed to cover-up the fact that the WTC had design defects that were brought to the port of Authority when it was being built but NYC had no rights to the business plans and could do nothing in the courts because it was alleged that the Port was not governed by the City and or State Regulations and laws because it fell under Marine laws only. In addition because of the first failed attempted to bomb the buildings in 1993 by so-called Islamic Extremist and due to the injuries, death, and claims filed against Lloyds of London in England, Lloyds was on the brick of Bankruptcy and was the Port of Authority, which also would have effected NYC itself in paying off huge amounts of money which would had totally bankrupt the city and the state.

As within the plot of the Savings and Loan Scandal years before as the failed savings institutes had not enough money to pay back the people who had accounts within within the federal Reserve, in both cases I alleged that conspirators from within and outside the government conspired to commit fraud by turning these events into cases for insurance.

In the savings and loan scandal during that time there were mounting numbers of “Banl Robberies in the Midwest and across the US.

The robberies I saw began in the late 80’s but expanded into 1990 whereby while I worked within the Courts there was the alleged ex-police officer out of Hoffman Estate called the Bearded Bandit, who with his wife alleged robbed banks all over the suburban area of Chicago Illinois. There were some elements of this case which were not true in fact and covered up for one the wife never shot herself in the front of a home in Streamwood she was shot by special unit op’s from what division I am not sure. Then her husband who was capture was killed in a shoot out but what I alleged was that he was gunned down so that he would not share information of the insurance scam. The same issue was happened in areas around Ok City and that could be the reason why Jesse Tredue’s brother was allegedly murdered within his prison cell the cover-up the real reason behind the bank robberies.

John Gary Peeler a former CIA/BATF/FBI agent was undercover within the KKK he has been on my program and his son John Christropher Peeler is being held in a Ark prison without parole for a crime of murder where there is no body, no crime scene and no evidence nothing to shutup Peeler. Peeler Sr. worked with Timothy McVeigh while undercover within the KKK working on bombing the Ok City Building, he knew about the bank robberies, the plot to take down the building and was able to stop one, but could do nothing about the WTC because no one would listen to him, his story as those of Eric Shine Merchant Marine Presidential Appointed by George Bush Sr., , Mary Schneider who worked 30 yrs within the INS and saw the florida connection of agents allowing Middle Easterns to gain entrance into the US that area of Fla was where the flight school was involved with the alleged training of terrorist cells at the same time I saw within my then office which was a place I was bought to to setup a new business to do Islamic Interest Loans for homes (Noriba) on the wall a huge picture of a boeing 747 class plane which I was told that being use as a picture to explan how to flight within a flight school which operated out of the Palos Hills area with ties into FL prior to 9/11/01.

The story was my nightmare, the government via clouted government officials and those who I had alleged were involved in a major sleeper cell used terrorism against me and my children. By sending in spooks, attempting to setup my bank account with counterfeit money orders, blackball me so I can not work and so that my children can not, criminalized by young son, use traffick tickets and others working within the policing agencies to cover-up and not investigation major corruption and criminals acts within DuPage County in order to shut be up and down and make me homeless. This is the same pattern that had been used on all whistleblowers and then causing them not to have equal rigthts under the amendments of the constitutional.

I am 55 yrs old and I have seen every level of corruption over a spam of 45 years including how entertainers and others were taken out in the same fashion in the 1940’s-62 while my father was involvcd as a publisher and reporter.Within his archieve were letters of this and then I was told by other creatible sources over the years of how they watched Mohammad X, who was a friend of my fathers, Joe Louis for saying good things about Jimmy Hoffa, and my father knew Jack Ruby prior to my father’s death. My father’s name was within the Warren Commission Report of the Death of JFK and my father help Kennedy to get elected within the chains of press he was involved in within the Black Community.

Because of all this I had been watched, and as they attempted to do with Mohammad X’s daughter they attempted to set me up over the years. But you see I saw things when I was very young and knew how they operated. Please read on thanks

D’Anne Burley

Originally published here.

The Different Laws Governing The Daily Operations Of An Illinois Car Dealer
Every kind of event taking place in the United States is governed by a set of laws to make sure all is fair and legal in the world of human civilization.

Just as drivers on the road have their own set of standards that must be followed for a safe and legal driving experience, so too are car dealerships subjected to various laws dictating how car sales are to operate.

First, there is the Illinois Lemon Law whose main provision is protecting the car consumer from buying and thus having to deal with a brand new but defective vehicle. Though other states have lemon laws covering used cars, the lemon laws in the state of Illinois only apply to new cars that were bought within the state’s boundaries.
New RV’s, new vans and light trucks under the 8,000 pound limit are also included in the Illinois lemon vehicle laws.

Under the stipulations of this law, a leased car is treated the same as a new car. Therefore, all Illinois car dealers recommend to their buyers that even if the vehicle they are interested in is leased instead of purchased outright, it is still just as important to keep careful documentation of repairs or problems had with the vehicle in question. This way, the consumer is then able to enjoy the full coverage that the Illinois lemon vehicle law provides to the state’s new car consumers.

Illinois also has strict requirements for those seeking a license to be able to sell motor vehicles.

To start, the applicant must prove that none of the individuals who hold more than ten percent of the company has violated any of the major vehicle laws more than one time in last three years. Such laws include the Illinois Vehicle Code Anti-Theft Law and the Illinois Vehicle Code for Dealers, Transporters, Wreckers, and Rebuilders.

Similarly, the Illinois car dealer also must not have more than two violations per year for the legal provisions that include: The Consumer Finance Act, The Illinois Wage Assignment Act, The Consumer Fraud Act, and the Motor Vehicle Retail Installment Sales Act.

In addition, any person that is intending on becoming a motor vehicle dealer in Illinois must first undergo a complete background check for his criminal history, including a fingerprint session where the fingerprinting receipt must be attached to the dealer application before the Secretary of State will issue him his business licensure.

Dealers of used cars have one other provision with which they must comply in order to legally conduct their business in Illinois. The owners of this type of motor vehicle business must fill out the extra documentation that discloses the rebuilt status of any previously owned vehicle on their lot so as to ensure that no laws are broken and no type of crucial information about the vehicle is left out of the transaction between the dealer, the buyer, and the Secretary of State who’s in charge of maintaining the business.

There are also Illinois car dealer laws centered around the way the car selling business itself is conducted. For example, there are special dealer-assigned plates that each new or used car on said dealer’s lot must contain before the vehicle can be put out for a test drive or a sale. And for those dealers who are selling both new and used cars, the rules state that the used cars must be parked in a separate area than the new cars or else the dealer is once again breaking the law.

Becoming an Illinois car dealer has its rewards when all the laws are followed without fail.

Originally published here.