Western Illinois Correctional Center
MOUNT STERLING, Ill. — A Mount Sterling man charged with three felonies for smuggling drugs and a cellphone into the Mount Sterling prison was sentenced Wednesday to four years in the Illinois Department of Corrections and three years of probation. Brown County State’s Attorney Michael Hill said the sentence for Joshua D. Havens, 49, imposed…
Read Full Article MOUNT STERLING, Ill. — A Mount Sterling man who formerly worked as a carpenter at the Western Illinois Correctional Center has been charged with three felonies in connection with smuggling drugs and a cellphone into the Mount Sterling prison. Illinois State Police arrested Joshua D. Havens, 49, on Feb. 21 as part of an investigation…
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For at least two hours of the ride home, Charles Collins feared someone was following his father’s car, looking to take him back to prison for the rest of his life. At an interstate rest stop between Western Illinois Correctional Center and Chicago, Collins said the reality of his freedom settled in and he let…
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The Joe Coleman Medical Release Act was expected to have freed hundreds of medically and terminally ill This article was produced by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station, and Injustice Watch, a nonprofit news organization in Chicago focused on issues of equity and justice in the court system. Phillip Merritt’s dementia is so advanced he’s lost the ability…
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Todd Sheffler, 54, of Mendon, a former lieutenant at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mt. Sterling, Illinois, was sentenced Monday to 20 years of imprisonment to be followed by five years of supervised release, for civil rights deprivation resulting in bodily injury and death and obstruction of justice in connection with…
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Alex Banta, 31, of Quincy, a former correctional officer at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mt. Sterling, was sentenced Thursday to 20 years’ imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release, for civil rights deprivation resulting in bodily injury and death and obstruction of justice in connection with the…
Read Full Article SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A jury of six women and six men deliberated for about three hours on Tuesday afternoon before finding a former lieutenant at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling guilty on five counts in connection with the 2018 death of a 65-year-old inmate. Todd Sheffler, 54, of Mendon was stoic as…
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — About 45 minutes after an eight-man, four-woman jury found a former corrections officer at the Western Illinois Correctional Center guilty of all five charges against him, two jurors were frustrated no decision was reached regarding the fate of a lieutenant at the same prison. “I don’t feel like we finished the job,”…
Read Full Article SPRINGFIELD — An eight-man, four-woman jury found one former prison guard at the Western Illinois Correctional Center guilty of all five charges in a trial that ended Monday, but the jury could not come to a decision on the fate of a second prison guard. Alex Banta, 30, of Quincy was found guilty of depriving…
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MOUNT STERLING, Ill. — Jury selection for the trial of two former correctional guards charged in the 2018 death of an inmate in the Western Illinois Correctional Center will begin Wednesday. A status conference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Eric I. Long was held Tuesday afternoon to discuss procedures for jury selection for the jury trial…
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From WBEZ MT. STERLING – David Kerstein thought there must be a mistake. The prison warden told him that if he wanted to meet with prisoner Roger Latimer he had to be at Western Illinois Correctional Center by 7 a.m. He had driven five hours from a Chicago suburb. Now staff were telling him there…
Read Full Article February 22, 2025
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