When a rental house is sold, the lease often goes with it and the tenant can stay. A LaSalle County judge ruled today that’s not what happened with Donna Casey-Schultz. Judge H. Chris Ryan found her guilty of property damage and trespassing for sawing the lock off a house on S. Vermillion St. in Streator in August. According to testimony, she installed her own locks and had begun putting up her own welcome sign the morning she was arrested.
Edgar Balanos Gonzalez bought the house in 2018. He testified he never gave Casey-Schultz permission to be there. He said the house was unlivable without utilities and undergoing extensive remodeling. He was out of state on August 29 when his wife called him by telephone to tell him about a woman refusing to leave.
Casey-Schultz testified that she had a lease with the previous owner since 2016 and it was never terminated as far as she knew. She said she used an electric reciprocating saw to remove the lock. Gonzalez testified that lock was there because the workers he hired had equipment inside.
No one presented the property deed as evidence. Defense lawyer John Fisher argued that the lack of proof of ownership should clear his client. Judge Ryan said a deed would be nice, but testimony about ownership was enough. Prosecutor Kelley Porter suggested sentencing Casey-Schultz to a year on conditional discharge. Since Fisher asked for a hearing, Ryan scheduled sentencing for February 23.