Hit-And-Run Charge Filed In Death Of Cyclist In Highland Park

WAUKEGAN, IL — The motorist accused of running over a cyclist in Highland Park and fleeing the scene was arrested Friday and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident.

Melanie Hass, 41, of Mundelein, struck and killed Maureen Wener, 49, of Deerfield, with her Jeep shortly after 12:30 p.m. on June 2 and drove away, according to the charges and a civil lawsuit filed by Wener's widower.

Six months after the crash, almost three months after Highland Park police turned over the case to the felony review unit of the Lake County State's Attorney's Office, and 10 days after an attorney filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Hass on Wener's behalf, prosecutors approved a class 1 felony charge.

"We are pleased that the Lake County State’s Attorney is moving forward with criminal charges against the driver," said Brian Lewis, the Lake Forest attorney representing Wener's husband. "Maureen’s family has been suffering in silence, but the time for justice has finally come."

Hass showed up at the police station on the night of the crash and initially cooperated with police, surrendering her car and phone for warrantless searches, but she denied knowing that she hit someone.

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In her initial statement to Highland Park police, Hass said she was having trouble shifting into gear and "went over the curb."

As she drove away, she said she saw another car drive toward the curb, telling police, "It's just eating away at me that I did not turn around or go back and I just went back to work," according to police reports.

Hass made an initial appearance Friday morning at the Lake County Courthouse. In her first appearance, a judge said he found it unconscionable that prosecutors had not requested her detention and ordered her to remain in custody until the afternoon for the state's attorney's office to decide if they wanted to petition for her detention as a flight risk, according to Lake County Associate Judge Theodore Potkonjak.

Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart said that his staff has been working with the Major Crash Assistance Team since the crash and had been in touch with Wener's family and their attorneys throughout the process.

"In all cases, this office will not bring charges unless we are convinced that we can prove the defendant committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. That means, in these types of cases, we often need to reconstruct the crash scene," Rinehart said. "Law enforcement experts, with MCAT, have been working on this diligently on this reconstruction. When this analysis was complete after Thanksgiving, we made our charging decision in the context of the entire investigation."

The only information included in the proffer presented by Rinehart's office that was not included in police reports turned over to prosecutors on Sept. 9 was a finding from a forensic scientist at the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Laboratory that matched damage to the handlebars of Wener's bicycle to Hass's vehicle.

Leaving the scene of a fatal accident is not a detainable offense under the dangerousness standard of the Pretrial Fairness Act, the bail reform provisions of the SAFE-T Act that took effect in September and eliminated monetary bail from the Illinois court system.

Defendants can be held on the basis of their threat to the community when they are charged with a list of specific "detainable" offenses and county prosecutors petition for it. Otherwise, they can only be detained pretrial if they violate a court order or are found to have a high likelihood of willful flight.

While the offenses of reckless homicide and aggravated driving under the influence causing great bodily harm are both detainable charges on the public safety standard, authorities have not alleged that Hass was driving recklessly or intoxicated at the time of the crash.

"People in Deerfield should feel safe to ride their bikes across crosswalks without worrying about getting run over and people leaving and not being held accountable," Wener's husband, Paul Rundell, told Patch. "This was not the purpose of the law."

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By Monday afternoon, Assistant State's Attorney Ben Dillon told Potkonjak that they had decided against seeking Hass's detention as a flight risk, citing her decision to surrender to police.

"Leaving the scene of an accident, even involving a fatal, is not an enumerated offense under the Pretrial Fairness Act," Dillon said.

Potkonjak noted that the charge — like every offense above the lowest level of felony — can trigger pretrial detention if a defendant is judged to have a high likelihood of willful flight — but the state's attorney's office has elected not to file a petition to request it.

"Unfortunately — or fortunately, whatever —the court doesn't even have the opportunity to make any decisions with regard to detention under the SAFE-T Act, because you haven't filed a petition," Potkonjak said.

The judge said the lack of a petition from prosecutors to detain Hass mooted a motion her defense attorney had filed seeking her release.

"Frankly, you're doing their job for them," Potkonjak told Dillon.

Rinehart, the chief county prosecutor, said Hass was cooperative after the crime and voluntarily showed up to court.

"A defendant can be cooperative with an investigation and also guilty," said Rinehart, one of two county prosecutors in Illinois to publicly back the bail reform law. He said he believes jail or prison can be necessary to remind the public that they must immediately report accidents to police.

"Here, the defendant, who has no prior criminal history, will be closely monitored with conditions," he said, in a statement to Patch. "The family and their lawyers were informed of this decision. Overall, our office takes these cases incredibly seriously, and we have sought jail or prison in similar cases."

Potkonjak ordered stricter conditions of pretrial monitoring than Rinehart's office had sought, mandating that she have a curfew and be forbidden from consuming drugs and alcohol while awaiting trial.

Hass's Chicago-based attorney, Sergei Kuchinski, did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the hearing. They are due back in court for a preliminary hearing Jan. 18.

According to data provided by the Illinois Department of Transportation, hit-and-run drivers killed seven cyclists and 58 pedestrians in Illinois law year. More than 1,200 pedestrians and nearly 560 cyclists were injured in crashes with hit-and-run drivers.

In Lake County, during the five years ending in January, 13 pedestrians and two cyclists died in fatal crashes with hit and run drivers, the IDOT data shows.

Spokespeople for Highland Park police — who never publicly acknowledged that they identified the suspected hit-and-run driver when she showed up at the station the night of the crash — have not responded to questions about why it took so long to bring charges.

Highland Park has no bike lanes anywhere in the city, and officials have decided against paving the portion of the mixed-use Green Bay Trail that runs through town. Instead, to delineate bike routes, city officials have decided to rely on "sharrows" — the shared lane markings that research has indicated actually increase the danger to people riding bicycles.

Earlier:

• Driver Suspected Of Killing Cyclist In Highland Park Hit-And-Run Sued
• Deerfield Obituary: Maureen Wener, 49
• Hit-And-Run Driver Fatally Strikes School Board Member Riding Bike