Crime & Safety

Clarendon Hills Trespasser Gets Maximum Six-Year Prison Sentence

Korey Blackwood entered a home in the 400 block of Colfax Avenue at 2 a.m. on March 7, nine hours after he was released from a downstate prison.

A Des Plaines man who earlier this year entered a Clarendon Hills home in the middle of the night was given a maximum sentence of six years in prison during a DuPage County court hearing Tuesday.

DuPage County State's Attorney Bob Berlin said Korey Blackwood pleaded guilty to one Class 4 felony count of criminal trespassing in July. Typically, the maximum sentence for such offenses is one to three years in prison, Berlin said, but Blackwood had a prior felony conviction within the last 10 years that was of the same class or higher. 

"Because of his background, he was eligible for an extended term," Berlin said. "We asked for the max and that’s what he got."

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Berlin did not know the details of Kenwood's previous conviction, other than that it was a sexual offense. In March, an email from Mike Rompa of the Bolingbrook Police Department said his department charged a registered sex offender named Korey Blackwood with living within 500 feet of a playground after the suspect was arrested on Feb. 8, 2010, for exposing himself to a female victim in a Bolingbrook stairwell. 

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The State of Illinois' sex offender database, meanwhile, has a file on a man named Korey Blackwood who has the same birthday as the man arrested in Clarendon Hills. The Blackwood in that file has prior convictions of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 years old and residing within 500 feet of a playground.

Blackwood, 30, was taken into custody by officers on March 7 after he was "controlled" by a male resident of the broken-into home, Clarendon Hills Police Chief Ted Jenkins said in March. Blackwood was not armed. Blackwood had been released at 5 p.m. the day before from the Mount Sterling Correctional Facility, which is west of Springfield.

Jenkins said police found an Amtrak ticket and Metra ticket on Blackwood when he was arrested. The suspect claimed he was lost and that the home was his girlfriend's, Jenkins said.

"There was no reason for him to be in the house," Jenkins said. "He did not know the people; the people did not know him."

Berlin said Blackwood's made a "blind plea" in July, meaning there was no agreement on a sentence at that time. 

When asked if he thought the fact that maximum sentence had anything to do with the fact that Blackwood's offense came only hours after his release from prison, Berlin said, "I’m sure that that was a factor."


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