DARRELL NEWMAN

DARREN FRANK

Other man in the mix is in trouble on FTA

CLAY CO. – The guy who was the last person to see a Sailor Springs woman alive is back in court in Clay County.

Darren Frank, 52, still of Sailor Springs, has managed to land himself not one, but two Orders of Protection filed against him in Clay County after incidents in early May that sort of smacks of the man’s ongoing criminal history that no one seems inclined to do anything about.

Frank is known for the situation that occurred in late March 2015 when he and his pseudo-girlfriend, Amber Mahon, 34, had gone to secure an OP against another man in the area, Darrell Newman, whom she claimed sexually assaulted her at the house she shared with Frank.

Frank accompanied her to the court hearing, and after the OP was denied, the two began arguing before they even left the courthouse. They drove away in his truck, but as they were traveling on the Sailor Springs Blacktop, passing motorists have stated, Frank was striking Mahon, so she reportedly opted to “jump out” of the moving vehicle, which act cost her her life.

Frank was never charged with anything in connection with that incident.

Since that time, Frank became a drug felon, being charged in February 2016 with multiple counts of Delivery of a Controlled Substance (hydrocodone), one of which he entered a plea to in January of 2017 with the rest being dismissed.

He was ordered to serve 30 months probation, get drug treatment, spend some time in jail, and pay a fine of $5,255, all of which has been paid, which might explain the slap on the wrist.

His ability to pay might also explain why nothing criminal has emerged from the recent OPs, as prosecutors in downstate Illinois are wont to follow through with OP claims these days, given the pitfalls of Bond Reform (see the January 2018 edition for explanation of the disaster Bond Reform is creating for impoverished downstate counties): If Frank is arrested while still on probation, the probation can be revoked and he would have to go through court hearings ad nauseam, only to be able to make sure he can pay his way out of them again, said pay nowhere near the grief (and expense) it causes for the law and the courts.

The first OP was filed against Frank by Amy Allison on May 7. Allison, of Sailor Springs, filed the Stalking/No-Contact Order on behalf of herself, her husband and their three kids. She stated that at 7:45 a.m. on the morning of May 4, Frank was at her house on Fourth Street parked behind her vehicle, screaming and cussing at her and her family, threatening harm to all of them.

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“He then proceeded to write down my home address as well as all of my license plate numbers on all of my vehicles,” Allison wrote. “I told him to leave, he said he could do what he wanted and told me if I didn’t like it he would beat the hell out of me.”

Allison also noted that every time Frank sees her driving down the road to pull in at her house, “he comes up on me fast and tries to rear-end me as I am pulling into my parking spot at my house.”

Frank was served with the paperwork on May 25; because Clay is one of those counties that refuses to put OPs on Judici, it’s difficult to say when the next court date is.

The second OP filed was one made by Pamela S. Dillon.

Dillon sought protection under her own Stalking/No-Contact Order, filed on the same day as Allison’s, May 7.

Under this OP, Dillon is also seeking protection for one Kenneth L. Newman. Newman, as it turns out, is the father of the formerly alleged sexual assaulter Darrell Newman, who himself is in a heap of trouble in Clay after getting out of prison and almost immediately re-offending; more on that shortly.

Dillon said that on May 4, at 11:45 a.m. (just a few hours after Frank’s initial hateful encounter with Allison; apparently he had a busy day that day), she was riding her bike and Frank “came so close to me that I only had three inches from handlebar to his truck.

“I couldn’t go any further over or I would have fallen in the ditch. He then sped off and turned down Park Street this was all on Soapberry and Park,” she wrote in her petition for OP. “He also drives by our place very fast all the time after he got a citation he came the next morning and got our license plate numbers on all of our vehicles and our house number. For what I don’t know but I don’t trust him.”

The citation to which she referred is a pitiful Improper Passing on Left, which doesn’t address the reckless way she described the incident to have taken place.

There was no information as to Frank’s service on the OP available as of press time.

And again, Frank is being allowed to skate, just as in the death of Mahon and the light sentence on the pill-slinging, prompting many to postulate that Frank might be working for local authorities as a nark and is being treated with kid gloves.

Darrell Newman, as it turns out, has begun his running afoul of the law anew after being released on parole from a 2016 conviction on an Aggravated Battery Causing Great Bodily Harm count.

Newman, 28, was just released from prison on parole February 20 of this year.

He apparently moved to Fairfield, and wasted no time getting into trouble in Clay with an arrest on May 20. Flora police got him for Driving While License Revoked and Illegal Transportation of Alcohol on South State Street in that town.

Then just a little over a week later, on May 31, Newman was picked up by Clay County Sheriff’s officials on an outstanding Clay County warrant for Failure to Appear on the original charge of Aggravated Battery (the one that sent him to IDOC).

The oblivious Newman didn’t show up at his pay-or-appear date the day before, prompting a warrant to be issued. Newman owes $782 of an $857 cumulative total of fines and fees.

This is the kind of thing that can get a person sent back to IDOC, but it’s Clay County, and like many in downstate Illinois, with prosecutors who seem these days to be scared of their own shadows, that likelihood probably isn’t a very good one, unless of course DOC parole sees fit to just come and get Newman and tote him back to prison.

It would help if three years in IDOC actually meant three years; Newman wouldn’t have been released until November of next year if that were the case.

But then again, if prosecutors would charge on material received from people who are being harassed, nearly run over, screamed at and having their lives threatened, there’d be a whole lot more people sitting in IDOC.

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