WAYNE CO.—It’s unclear what kind of “illness” Wayne County’s duly-elected prosecutor is suffering, but it’s bad enough to have taken him out of the picture of one of the most violent and questionable scumbag crims to come along in Wayne County in decades.
And when Wayne’s prosecutor David Williams steps out, generally, a REAL prosecutor is tapped to step in, and that’s just what’s happened in the case of John Robertson—Edwards County’s duly-elected prosecutor Mike Valentine has stepped to the plate, and if he is allowed to do the follow-through, maybe the vile Robertson will finally end up where he belongs instead of back out on the street.
John Robertson
Wayne County residents are all too familiar with Robertson: last year in October, Robertson, 34, was alleged to have nearly beaten to death one Reggie Shemwell, 37, in an incident of what most considered to be crim-on-crim crime. Joining Robertson in the fray was his wife, Jennifer, was also allegedly involved, as well as one Mary Denise Harrison. All three of them were initially charged with Murder (it was attempted murder, but listed as a Class M murder case for a couple of reasons, one being it didn’t look like Shemwell was going to make it), Home Invasion with Injury and Residential Burglary. However, over time, those were reduced or amended until, earlier this year, most of it was “dismissed on state’s motion” and in January, Robertson was allowed to plead guilty to an amended count of Burglary and was LET GO without posting bond pending sentencing. His wife plead to an amended Criminal Trespass misdemeanor and she too was out, pending the April sentencing.
And they just couldn’t behave.
On May 11 Robertson, along with his punk kid, Braden, 16, and another local crim, Kevin Lemond, allegedly abducted a local guy, Patrick Vaughan and, as outlined in this article, proceeded to allegedly beat him, then dump him in Pond Creek. And they wouldn’t have been able to do such a thing if SOMEONE (David Williams) had been doing his job all along.
Now, someone is.
Ricky L. Trout, hemmed back up….we’ll tell you how that happened in the next print edition
On June 12 Valentine filed a motion for “leave to re-file criminal charges previously dismissed pursuant to plea agreement,” one of those little-done things in this part of the state that, if they were followed through on, would land more than a handful of violent crims behind bars where they belong. As it often happens, this trash continues to get away with these types of crimes even after a plea agreement because the prosecutor “wants to work with them ” (make them a nark, etc.) and get a little use out of them before they screw up irretrievably and end up having a longer sentence for a second or third crime than they would have on the original (just look at Ricky Trout, as an example).
Valentine’s motion shows that as part of the plea agreement Robertson entered into, and the recog bond given him (meaning he had to post no money to get out; it was his “own recognizance”) he was not to “drink alcoholic beverages or violate any local, state or federal law.” And that little bit of trouble he got into last month with Vaughan apparently violated both. The big difference here is that Valentine opted to re-file, instead of just violate, meaning that now, Robertson is facing ALL the charges from October 2012 again…including the Class M, a felony that is non-probationable and carries a minimum 20 years in prison as a sentence. Now, granted, Shemwell didn’t die. But the “attempt,” it can be argued, was made. And that’s heavy-duty, even for a crim of Robertson’s ilk.
Braden Robertson
Robertson’s set to make a first appearance in the new case on June 24, the same day his wife is to be sentenced on the October charge. But of course, the big question is why any of it even happened in the first place: Why Williams refused to set in motion anything that would result in any meaningful punishment for Robertson, and most importantly, why Robertson is going around allegedly beating people up in the first place. Our sources say it’s for drugs and money, and that he’s nothing but a two-bit pansyass thug who picks on people with reduced defenses in an effort to get what he wants. But that’s simplistic. There has to be more to it than that, especially with everything Robertson and his whole family now has ostensibly gotten away with (his kid was sent to juvie, so at least someone in the scenario was shown some modicum of punishment). And we just don’t know what it is, because Williams runs one of the vaguest, most non-media-friendly administrations we’ve ever seen. That might be because he can’t issue a felony charge against someone unless there’s a grand jury (because of all the lawsuits filed and lost against the county deputies, they now have no standing on information/police reports, and a felony can’t be brought against someone based on their non-credible word…and thanks to former disaster-of-a-sheriff Sonny McCulley, who brought in the union, subsequent sheriffs can’t get rid of the errant deputies and start over.) Or it might be because David Williams is totally incompetent. But hey, Wayne had the opportunity in the 2010 Primary to get rid of his ass, and they did not. C’est la vie. Such is life in downstate Illinois, where we elect prosecutors as the people’s attorney who would be made mincemeat of in more savvy counties…not that they don’t have their share of corruption to begin with. So all we have to say is: Go for it, Valentine. As an attorney originally from the Chicagoland area, he at least came to be schooled in the law in the “swim or die” atmosphere up north. We hope justice prevails in the Robertson case, now in his capable hands.