Joliet Man, 83, Will Never Drive A Vehicle Ever Again, His Criminal Defense Lawyer Tells Patch
JOLIET, IL — Arthur Vidmar, the 83-year-old Joliet man who was arrested by Joliet police in November and October on DUI charges and his 4 p.m. Nov. 15 crash on Larkin Avenue left a 67-year-old woman with serious injuries, will no longer be kept in the Will County Jail under the SAFE-T-Act.
“He will never drive again. It’s a positive for him and his family and Judge Bertani made sure there were substantial safeguards to make sure this does not happen again,” downtown Joliet criminal defense counsel Steven Haney told Joliet Patch’s editor during Tuesday’s phone interview.
Earlier in the day, Haney managed to convince Will County’s longest serving judge, Amy Bertani-Tomczak, to rule in his client’s favor. The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office had filed a petition seeking to deny pretrial release under the SAFE-T-Act for Vidmar, but the judge ruled in favor of the Joliet octogenarian and ordered his release from the county jail facility.
Vidmar has remained in the Will County Jail since Joliet police booked him into custody on Nov. 15. Prosecutors charged him with multiple felony crimes of DUI following his crash that Joliet police say happened when Vidmar’s pickup truck left the KFC drive-thru parking lot and hit part of the KFC restaurant, drove through the restaurant’s landscaping and collided with a 67-year-old motorist as she was stopped traffic at the busy Oneida Street interaction with Larkin Avenue.
Joliet police also had arrested Vidmar the previous month on a different DUI incident, the agency said. Joliet Patch remains the only news outlet covering the criminal court proceedings involving Vidmar.
In Tuesday’s interview, Haney told Joliet Patch that his client will be moving into a senior care facility at the urging of his family members. Vidmar had been living alone on North Reed Street at the time of his back-to-back DUI arrests, Haney said.
Haney assured Joliet Patch that his client will never drive a motor vehicle again and that the senior care facility where Vidmar will reside will have 24-hour-a-day security. Haney said his client’s family members are strongly supportive of the decision to make him move and the decision of preventing Vidmar from driving his automobile again.
Court documents show that Judge Bertani-Tomczak’s order prohibits Vidmar from leaving the state of Illinois, it places him on electronic monitoring, and it prohibits him from driving a motor vehicle.
Judge Bertani also issued a SCRAM order and the court document indicates Vidmar must maintain absolute sobriety from alcohol at his new place of residence, The Pearl of Joliet at 306 North Larkin Avenue. The Joliet nursing care facility was previously known as Symphony of Joliet, when it was named in wrongful death lawsuits filed during the COVID worldwide pandemic of 2020.
The Pearl of Joliet is only a couple away from the location of Vidmar’s crash, leaving the KFC.
Haney said that Judge Bertani made the proper decision in ordering his client’s release from the Will County Jail where he has remained since Nov. 15.
“The guy is 83 years old, he suffered broken ribs from the accident. He will be under 24-hour home confinement and they’re not going to let him out by himself. He’s going to have GPS monitoring and a SCRAM bracelet put on,” Haney pointed out. “He’s never going to drive.”
In addition to suffering broken ribs in this month’s crash at Larkin and Oneida, Haney said that Vidmar had an aortic aneurysm and that he needed to use a wheelchair to attend Tuesday morning’s Will County Courthouse proceedings in Courtroom 405.
In last week’s story, Joliet Patch reported that when Vidmar was taken to St. Joe’s hospital, only a few blocks away, Vidmar admitted he “drank a pint of vodka and had not eaten all day,” prosecutors revealed.
