Man dies after falling from a ladder

A fall from a ladder has killed a man from Henry.  49 year old Darrell Long was working at a home in Lake Thunderbird when he fell just after 12pm Tuesday.

Long was taken to Perry Memorial Hospital in Princeton where he was pronounced dead.  The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department and Bureau County Coroner’s Office are investigating.

Murder Charge In Earlville Home Invasion

A man who survived a home invasion in Earlville now faces a murder charge.

24-year old Marcus Samarripa of California was indicted yesterday for 1^st Degree Murder.  He’s also charged with home invasion and residential burglary.

Samarripa and Raymond Maldonaldo also of California are accused of forcibly entering Joel Contreras’ Earlville home in February.  Contreras shot and killed Maldonaldo.  Samarripa got away but was caught by police near Ottawa.

La Salle County State’s Attorney Brian Towne says Samarripa is charged based on the accountability theory of felony murder.  That means since Samarripa was carrying out of a felony and someone died during it, he can be held responsible for the death even if he didn’t shoot him.

Contreras shot and killed Maldonaldo but hasn’t been charged with murder.  Towne hasn’t decided if he will face a murder charge. Contreras is charged with growing marijuana in his basement.

He’s being held at the La Salle County Jail because of an immigration issue.  Bond for Samarippa is a million dollars.

La Salle chooses electricity supplier

Your electricity charges will be changing come July if you live in La Salle.  As the city continues to move toward electrical aggregation, they’ve chosen a supplier to sell electricity to homeowners and businesses.

Homefield Energy, whose parent company is Ameren, offered a rate of 4.42% good for three-years.  The city council was comfortable accepting the bid, especially since Homefield won’t charge you if you chose to opt-out of the program.

In the coming weeks you’ll be given the chance to choose your electricity supplier.  You’ll still be billed by Ameren and Ameren crews will still be called out to handle outages.

You’ll notice the lower rate on your August Ameren bill.

Lawmakers Tell Bosses To Back Off Facebook Snooping

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Illinois workers would be protected from bosses that want access to their Facebook accounts and other social media under legislation sent to the governor’s desk.

The bill says employers cannot require workers or job applicants to grant access to social media. It’s rare, but there have been cases of applicants being forced to allow interviewers to examine their private accounts.

The Illinois Senate voted 55-0 Tuesday to ban that practice. The House approved it in March.

Another Drinking Bash At Grand Bear

For the second straight week, state police say they busted a drinking party at Grand Bear Lodge.

Troopers went to Utica Sunday morning and were told by lodge workers that a loud drinking party was going down inside a rented villa.  After seeing empty beer cans outside the village, officers say they arrested seven underage drinkers from Chicago.  One of them was also ticketed for having a fake driver’s license. All seven alleged drinkers were released to their parents.

Over 20 underage drinkers were arrested last Sunday at the resort.  They were from Joliet, Plainfield and Streamwood.

Lotto Winner In Earlville

How would you like to win five thousand dollars a week for the rest of your life?

Someone bought a winning lotto ticket in Earlville that pays out five thousand dollars cash for life.  The winner hasn’t come forward.  The ticket was sold at Express Lane in Earlville.  State Lotto officials gave the gas station a 38 thousand dollar check yesterday.

The winner paid ten dollars for the winning ticket.

Process To Close Dwight Prison Continues

Nothing is official, but layoff notices have been given to workers at Dwight Correctional Center.

Following procedure of having to give workers 30 days notice, the Department of Corrections delivered the layoff notices to the nearly 400 prison workers this week.  Governor Pat Quinn wants to close the prison in Dwight to help close a budget deficit.

State Representative Jason Barickman of Champaign is among those trying to find money in the budget for Dwight.  He’s introduced a bill that would shell out 35 million to keep the women’s prison up and running.  The proposal is in committee and hasn’t been voted on by the House or Senate.

The new state budget is supposed to be ready by the end of the month.