Steger Man Convicted in Deadly Drunken Wreck Tries For New Trial

On the day he was supposed to learn whether he was headed to prison, Cecil Conner was sent back to jail for at least another week after his lawyer made a last minute bid for a new trial.

Attorney Jeff Tomczak said he just found out this week that the jail records and stores not only all jailhouse telephone conversations, but all inmate visits.

Armed with this new information, Tomczak filed a motion on Wednesday asking for all of Conners' recorded conversations and claims the failure to have them to begin with is grounds for a new trial.

"We believe this very significant discovery violation should allow Mr. Conner to have a new trial," Tomczak said following a brief hearing Wednesday during which Conner was supposed to find out what sentence would be imposed by Judge Edward Burmilla.

Conner was of aggravated driving under the influence following a February trial. He faces up to 14 years in prison.

Conner was arrested in May 2010 after he rammed his girlfriend's 1997 Chevy Cavalier into a tree. The girlfriend's 5-year-old son, Michael Langford, was sleeping in the car's back seat and was killed in the crash.

The girlfriend, Kathie LaFond, had been driving. But 40 minutes prior to the crash, Chicago Heights Police Officer Chris Felicetti pulled the car over and arrested LaFond, who was sober but driving without a valid license. Felicetti the drunken  Conner to drive off with the young boy in the backseat.

Within two days of her son's death, LaFond had a going against Felicetti, Conner and the town of Chicago Heights.

Many of the "thousands of hours" of recorded conversations that Tomczak says he wants from prosecutors include lengthy talks between Conner and LaFond, the defense attorney said.

"Once you hit the record button, you're creating evidence," said Tomczak, who explained how he learned of the archived recordings when a prosecutor turned over tapes in an unrelated murder case on Monday. He said the recordings gave prosecutors an edge in the case.

"The family members I had met with were disclosing my trial strategy to the defendant — that's how important this can be," said Tomczak, who served as Will County State's Attorney from 2002 until 2006 but said he did not know of the recording procedures at the jail.

"When I was state's attorney I don't think they were doing it," he said.

But now, Tomczak said, prosecutors can access recorded jailhouse conversations from their desks with the push of a button.

Charles B. Pelkie, the spokesman for the state's attorney's office, declined to comment on Tomczak's claims except to say the motion "will be heard in a courtroom where it's appropriate."

But  Tomczak said his motion for discovery may reach far beyond Conner's courtroom, and may impact every criminal case where a defendant has spent time in the county jail.

"It's going to be an issue that's going to be raised in a lot of cases," he said.

Defense attorney Dave Carlson, who is the chairman of the Will County Bar Association's Criminal Law Committee, agreed, saying, "I think it's potentially huge."

Carlson said he plans to file a motion similar to Tomczak's in some of his own cases, including that of Daniel Huizar, who was convicted of murder in March and is up for sentencing in front of Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, who is Jeff Tomczak's wife, on Thursday.

"It opens the floodgates," Carlson said of Tomczak's motion.

Since Conner was supposed to be sentenced today, the dead boy's father, Michael Lanford Sr., traveled in from Arizona to read a statement to the judge.

"A great joy had been ripped from our lives," Langford said. "I may one day forgive the defendant for what happened, but his thoughtless and severely careless actions make it extremely hard for me to do."

Langford said he would not be able to return for Conner's next court date, which was set for next week. During this hearing, Burmilla will allow Tomczak to argue for a new trial.