Woman beats boyfriend with baseball bat, charged with drug possession
On Saturday, March 1, at approximately 11:54 a.m. a Madison County Sheriff’s deputy found Kelsey D. Proffer, 23, Cottage Hills, in a ditch with her boyfriend in the 1400 block of 9th street in Cottage Hills.
Kelsey D. Proffer
Police determined that Proffer had busted out the back window of her boyfriend’s vehicle, parked nearby, with a wooden baseball bat, before beating the boyfriend about the head with the bat. The boyfriend, who was bleeding from the nose and head, refused medical assistance.
During booking procedures, deputies seized several unlawfully possessed alprazolam tablets from Proffer, who was charged in Madison County with aggravated battery and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.
State Trooper’s car, with DUI suspect in backseat, hit by another DUI suspect.
On Saturday, March 8 at 3:33 a.m., an Illinois State Trooper was sitting in his marked car along Interstate 64 near East St. Louis with a person just arrested for DUI, when another vehicle struck the car.
The trooper climbed out of the car and, with the assistance of a witness who stopped to help, was able to pull the arrestee from the squad car. The driver of the vehicle that hit the squad car, the trooper and the arrestee were all transported to local hospitals with injuries that were not life threatening.
The driver of the vehicle that hit the squad car and the arrestee have both been charged with DUI.
Highland man gets 90 years for child pornography
Christopher M. Horton, 21, of Highland was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to 90 years in prison for six counts of production of child pornography, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced.
Horton was also ordered to pay $3,250 in restitution to the victims of his offenses and a $600 special assessment.
Employed as a martial arts instructor at a studio in Belleville, Horton was convicted of sexually abused three students, ages 6, 6, and 10, and video recording the acts using his cell phone. Horton also attempted to engage a fourth minor, who was 7 years-old, in sexually explicit conduct to produce a recording of that conduct, a spokesperson said.
Authorities recovered approximately 57 video files containing child pornography from Horton’s mobile phone. The files were created by Horton between the dates of May 1, 2012, and Feb. 9, 2013. During an interview with law enforcement, Horton confessed to sexually abusing the minors and to having produced video recordings of the abuse.
Horton preyed upon children whenever given the opportunity, including at the karate studio where he worked, private residences and at his home Two entries in the Notes folder of Horton’s mobile phone show he meticulously scripted what he would say to his young victims to solicit them, groom them and to keep them silent.
In pronouncing the sentence, Chief United States District Judge David R. Herndon commented on the shocking and serious nature of the offenses committed by Horton: “Probably in my 15 years as a federal judge this is the most serious and heinous case that I have seen. . . .
Former Scott Air Force Base official gets three years of probation for car repair bribe
Dennis Charles Toenjes, Sr, 66, was recently sentenced to three years of probation for receiving $9,382.01 from Stephen Keith Sweet in the form of payments for car and home heating and cooling repairs.
Toenjes is a former Scott Air Force Base official. Sweet, the owner of an asbestos abatement company that performed work at Scott AFB, is serving an 18-month prison term for tax fraud and paying gratuities to a government official.
