Former State’s Attorney’s Wife Sentenced Today

A woman from Ottawa who has pled guilty to stealing from a church she worked at will be sentenced today.

Judge H. Chris Ryan will sentence 42-year old Terri James this afternoon at one o’clock.  James pled guilty to residential arson and theft last month.  In exchange, an attempted arson charged was dropped.  Prosecutors agreed to cap their sentence request at 14 years.

James was arrested in March after a fire broke out at a home on Catherine Street in Ottawa.  She was also accused of trying to set fire to an empty building on Leland Street.  Prosecutors think she was trying to destroy evidence showing that she stole over 100,000 thousand dollars from the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Ottawa where she was a secretary.

James is married to former La Salle County State’s Attorney Mike James.