JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI – jduchnowski@nwherald.com
September 10, 2009

WOODSTOCK – Prosecutors plan to refile charges against an Algonquin woman who removed a pet-waste can after a judge dismissed the case Thursday on a technicality. Carrie Fosdale, 46, has said she took the doggie waste station in October in protest after Old Oak Terrace Homeowners Association representatives installed it near her townhome. She was charged with theft under $300, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

McHenry County Judge Charles Weech agreed with defense attorney George Kililis that prosecutors cannot amend charges that did not include all the elements of the alleged crime. But Weech gave prosecutors permission to refile the case, which Assistant State’s Attorney Demetri Tsilimigras said they planned to do.

Prosecutors said they had been trying to save time and effort by amending the existing charges rather than dropping and refiling them.

They also added a second count of theft when they added language to the first count in July.

Kililis maintained that his client’s actions were part of a neighborhood dispute, not a crime.

“I don’t think she has the slightest criminal intent in her body,” Kililis said outside court. “And she didn’t then.”

Tsilimigras declined to comment on why prosecutors were refiling the case. Calls seeking comment from State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi and Nichole Owens, chief of Bianchi’s Criminal Division, were not immediately returned Thursday.