An Illinois man is facing nine felony counts of possession of a firearm without an FOID.
(even though he had an FOID card, as far as I'm concerned)
His ex-girlfriend got an order of protection against him after they had an argument over their son.
When the order of protection was dismissed, the guy doesn't immideately notify Springfield to
reinstate his FOID. I doubt he even knew he needed to tell Springfield anything.
I would have assumed the agencies talk to each other. Hell, Springfield knew enough to suspend the
FOID when the order of protection was filed, why wouldn't they know to reinstate it when it was
dismissed?
Two months go by, and during an investigation regarding a dog attack,
police find and confiscate nine of the man's firearms.
Two freak'in months.
Even though the man had an FOID card, and the order of protection was dismissed, because
he didn't notify Springfield, he is a felon.
Screw Illinois.
www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/27/news/local/doc44278a0e9a5ce371135328.txtERIE, Ill. — For more than a year, Art Dersham kept silent while his neighbors mourned.
A red teddy bear propped along the gravel roadside marks the spot where four of his dogs attacked
14-year-old Lydia Chaplin after she left her home in the early morning hours of Jan. 27, 2005. She
was found in a ditch, dead of hypothermia after spending the cold January night outside just half a
mile from her rural Erie home and not far from Dersham’s farmhouse.
The daily reminders are more than symbolic for both families.
A Whiteside County grand jury considered the case, but declined to indict Dersham, 26, on criminal
charges related to Lydia’s death. The dogs, determined to be vicious, were destroyed.
Now, Dersham faces nine felony weapons charges brought by the grand jury and a wrongful death
civil lawsuit filed by Lydia’s family.
Her family declined requests for an interview.
Dersham said before the dog attack, he had been friendly with the family, helping Lydia’s stepfather,
Tony Lopez, work on cars and fix things around the house. He went to Lydia’s funeral, calling it one of
the hardest things he has ever done. He said he feels terrible for her family.
“I could never imagine the kind of pain and suffering they’re going through,” he said.
At the time, he refused media requests for interviews to avoid making things worse for the family.
“I figured, what the hell, I can take the heat,” he said.
That includes the wrongful death lawsuit filed in Whiteside County in November by Lydia’s mother,
Becky Lopez, alleging that Dersham’s failure to keep his dogs in his yard led to Lydia’s death.
The suit alleges that Lydia was “conducting herself peacefully” when she was attacked by Dersham’s
dogs “without provocation.”
“We feel the evidence will show that his dogs had a prior history of viciousness,” said Craig
Kavensky, the lawyer representing the Lopez family in the civil lawsuit.
Dersham says his dogs, three Staffordshire terriers and a boxer, were not vicious, and he would
never have allowed them to be around his own young children if he thought they were dangerous.
But he conceded that he found out after the attack that one of the dogs, which he had acquired just a
week before the attack, had bitten a child at a previous home in Davenport.
“I had no idea,” he said.
The weapons case is scheduled for trial in May 24 in Whiteside County Circuit Court.
If convicted, Dersham faces up to three years in prison on each of nine counts of possession of a
firearm without the requisite firearm owner’s identification, or FOID, card. The charges stem from
weapons found in his home during the investigation of Lydia’s death.
Whiteside County State’s Attorney Gary Spencer said he did not agree with the grand jury’s decision
not to indict Dersham on charges related to Lydia’s death, but said his prosecution on the gun
charges is a separate issue.
He said the facts of the case support the charges.
Dersham claims his violation of the gun law was an oversight and that he is being prosecuted to
punish him for Lydia’s death.
He said he had an FOID, but it had been suspended when an ex-girlfriend obtained a civil order
of protection against him after a dispute over custody of their son. He said the order was dismissed
two months before investigators found the firearms in his home the morning Lydia was found, but he
had not notified the Illinois State Police to reinstate his card.Dersham’s attorney, Virgil Thurman, said he believes the charges would have been reduced to
misdemeanors were it not for the dog attack.
“I don’t think that if it were anybody but Art Dersham, we would have gotten to this point in the
case,” Thurman said.
If he is convicted, Dersham said his guns, some of them antiques, could be destroyed. He also could lose his right to own a dog. But owning a dog now would be too painful for him and his
neighbors.
“I don’t think I’ll ever own another dog again,” he said. “I don’t want the reminder.”
Steven Martens can be contacted at (563) 659-2595 or
[email protected].