Lake in the Hills woman sentenced to 7 years in prison for 6th DUI conviction, 2 for driving with revoked license

A McHenry County judge said he thinks a 58-year-old Lake in the Hills woman with five previous convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol suffers from alcohol addiction and is a threat to the public.

Judge Robert Wilbrandt sentenced Tammie J. Newsome on Friday to seven years in prison for her sixth DUI conviction stemming from a 2018 charge, plus another two years in prison for her fifth conviction of driving with a revoked license in 2019.

She is required to serve each sentence consecutively and at 50% under the state’s truth-in-sentencing guidelines. She then will serve two years of mandatory supervised release. For a petty offense of passing an emergency vehicle, Wilbrandt sentenced Newsome to 30 days in jail, which will run concurrent with the prison term.

“The defendant has a history of prior criminality,” Wilbrandt said. “Prison is necessary to deter others.”

Wilbrandt said he will recommend Newsome participate in an addiction treatment program and counseling while in prison. Her placement will be up to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Her risk to the public “outweighs hardship to her family if in prison,” Wilbrandt said.

At times his voice cracking, Newsome’s 28-year-old son, Julien, spoke on his mother’s behalf.

He told Wilbrandt that she is a single mom who gave up her whole life to care for him, his sister and his step-grandfather, who died while she was in the McHenry County Jail. He said she spent years taking public transportation to get to work and to help care for her stepfather. The reason she drove that night in 2019 on a revoked license was because she needed to get the vehicle home for his sister, who had an early-morning basketball game, he said.

The DUI conviction, being her sixth, is a Class X charge that carried a possible sentence of six to 30 years in prison.

Newsome’s attorney, Albert Wysocki, argued that it was a Class 1 charge carrying a lesser sentence. He asked that she receive four years for the DUI and probation for aggravated driving with a revoked license.

She is not “human waste,” Wysocki told the judge, adding Newsome has a disease that controls her in asking for leniency. “[She] is someone you could mold here.”

According to an amended indictment filed in the McHenry County courthouse, Newsome has convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol in Cook County in 1985 and twice in 1999, as well as in Kane County from 1999 and in McHenry County in 2009.

Newsome, who spent 18 years in the military, also spoke to the judge and said that she is eligible for DUI court, which would be a better option for her than prison. She said she hasn’t had an easy life but is a good taxpaying citizen who participates in Alcoholics Anonymous and has tried to stay sober.