Lake Villa man found guilty in McHenry ‘reign of terror’ that involved 20 crime scenes

During the stormy, early morning hours of March 31, 2023, prosecutors said a Lake Villa man went on “nothing short of a reign of terror” throughout McHenry, and Judge Tiffany Davis agreed.

On Wednesday, after a trial that began in March over the “complicated” case of Nicholas Lopardo, 27, Davis found him guilty of 25 of 31 counts against him, including four Class X felonies of armed violence and aggravated discharge of a firearm.

Since each Class X conviction can carry a maximum 30-year sentence, Lopardo faces the possibility of decades in prison when he’s sentenced in September.

Lopardo was found not guilty of three Class X charges of attempted murder with intent to kill. Of those acquittals, Davis said that because Lopardo was voluntarily intoxicated, he could not have been capable of forming a specific intent to kill. The three charges related to when Lopardo fired at three vehicles driving past him, two occupied by police officers.

He will remain in McHenry County Jail until sentencing Sept. 19.

In closing arguments last month, McHenry County State’s Attorney Randi Freese presented a timeline that began about 1 a.m. the night of his crime spree, when Lopardo was rejected by a woman at a friend’s house on Charlotte Avenue. He fired a gun four times into the ground then fled in his black Jaguar at high speeds with no headlights, Freese said.

An officer and neighbor testified to seeing the Jaguar race out of the neighborhood as Lopardo embarked on “nothing short of a reign of terror” for the next four hours, Freese said.

The case involved 20 crime scenes, dozens of victims, 46 witnesses, hundreds of pieces of evidence “and nearly three dead bodies,” Freese said. “But by the Grace of God, this is not a murder trial.” Lopardo, she said, created ”pure chaos.”

After fleeing the Charlotte Avenue house, he drove to a residence on Colby Drive, parked and abandoned his Jaguar, still running with a half bottle of Jack Daniels on its roof, and stole a Suburban, officials said.

Prosecutors said he then continued his crime spree by damaging farm property near the intersection of Barreville and Justen roads. He crashed the Suburban into a building on nearby conservation property, which he also shot up and eventually ditched that car, which was found with a shattered windshield caused by bullets fired from the inside, Freese said.

Lopardo was accused of shooting at three vehicles and their drivers on and near Barreville Road, two of which were police vehicles that had been dispatched because of his actions, prosecutors said.

The spree ended, prosecutors said, when Lopardo was found roaming the nearby Irish Prairie neighborhood, where he shot at and threw rocks into multiple homes with “innocent families” inside, Freese said.

The gun matching shell casings found inside the Jaguar and Suburban and at the various crime scenes was found in the backyard of one of the homes.

Lopardo “committed over 30 crimes,” Freese said. “The only thing that is not complicated is who did it.”

Lopardo’s attorney, Robert Ritacca, noted there were no fingerprints, physical evidence or DNA presented linking Lopardo to the alleged crimes, and no witnesses who identified Lopardo in court as the perpetrator.

But one officer who saw Lopardo flee the Charlotte Avenue address said he passed the Jaguar, saw the driver and recognized his “icy blue eyes.”

When Lopardo was arrested, “it was unbeknownst to him what that neighborhood was” or how he got there, Ritacca said. He also said that although the state showed Ring camera video of a man walking through that neighborhood, Lopardo could not be identified.

But on Wednesday, Lopardo was also found not guilty of two counts of criminal damage to fences in the Irish Prairie neighborhood.