Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 2-3

3 NNWCHICAGO TRIBUNE METRO SECTION2 Bail was set Tuesday at $1 million for a Hanover Park man accused of sexually and physically abusing two young of them beginning in 2000, prosecutors said. Egan Barranca, 36, of the 1700 block of Evergreen Avenue was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated criminal sexual assault and sexual exploitation of a child, prosecutors said at a hearing in the Rolling Meadows branch of Cook County Circuit Court. Barranca was arrested Monday after the mother of the girls, now ages 14 and 10, contacted Hanover Park police. Prosecutors said Barranca, who knew the mother, began molesting one girl in 2000 when she was 7. If the girl refused to cooperate, he punished her by pushing her into a wall or hitting her with a belt, said Ruthe Howes, an assistant attorney.

Barranca also forced the girl to watch pornography, Howes said. Howes said Barranca began molesting the younger sister in 2005. He threatened to hurt the mother if the girls revealed the abuse, Howes said. Barranca was arrested after the mother overheard the younger girl telling a friend about the abuse. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is investigating, authorities said.

HANOVER PARK $1 million bail set in abuse of sisters A woman who diedafter being struck by a car near her home in Niles over the weekendhas been identified as Bernice Zuraski, 86, police said Tuesday. Zuraskiof the 8100 block of Oakton Streetwas hit by an eastbound car Saturday afternoon as she was crossing the road in the 7400 block of Police Sgt. Tom Davis said. Zuraski was pronounced dead at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. The driver of the car was cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian, police said.

NILES 86-year-old woman hit, killed by car is identified A Carpentersville man was seriously wounded in a shooting that may have been gang-related, police said Tuesday. The victim, 27, was shot in the head as he was driving near Wakefield Drive and Berkshire Circle about 9 p.m. Monday, said police Cmdr. Michael Kilbourne. A witness reported hearing three shots, police said.

The victim was taken to Sherman Hospital in Elgin and transferred to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. Police believe that a passenger in the car was not injured. The passenger left the scene after the shooting. Investigators say whether the shots were fired by a gunman on foot or from another vehicle, Kilbourne said. CARPENTERSVILLE Authorities suspect gangs were involved in shooting A Cook County jury on Tuesday ordered the City of Chicago to pay $3.9 million to the family of a man shot and killed by police in 2004, according to lawyers and city officials.

Ronald Mullins, 30, was shot three times and killed by Officer Geoffrey Roberts in a confrontation at a gas station across the street from the Austin District police headquarterson July 6, 2004. Gary Laatsch, one of the lawyers for survivors, said Roberts had acted recklessly.The jury, according to Laatsch, awarded $5.2 million to survivors, including his father, but it reduced the amount to $3.9 million because of conduct in the incident. Karen Seimetz, a first assistant corporation counsel for the city, said city lawyers would consider an appeal. CHICAGO Jury awards $3.9 million to police family Gunmen struck two Palatine restaurants in separate robberies this week, police said Tuesday. On Sunday night, two menwith silver handguns ordered five employees of Panda Expressat 1165 E.

Dundee Rd. into a walk-in freezer and forced the restaurant manager to remove more than $1,000 from a safe, police Cmdr. Sam Maki said. Both as thin, wore black clothing, masks and dark sunglasses, police said. There were no injuries and the manager called 911 after the robbery, Maki said.

On Monday, a gunman demanded money from an employee after ordering food at 139 Northwest Highway, Maki said. Theman wore a baseball cap, blue jogging pants and a jacket over a gray shirt and a T-shirt. He escaped with less than $1,000, Maki said. PALATINE 2 fast-food restaurants hit by armed robbers METROPOLITAN DIGEST By Rick Pearson Tribune political reporter Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert heads a full slate of 57 candidates seeking election as convention delegates pledged to Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney in the Feb.

5 primary, the campaign said Tuesday. In becoming the first presidential campaign to announce its Illinois delegate slate, including 57 alternate delegate candidates, the Romney campaign is intending to show a breadth of organizational skills in a state that is very much up for grabs for Repub- lican White House contenders. be able to get 114 men and women who are geographically spread across the state does take a good deal of organizational said state Sen. Dan Rutherford of Chenoa, Illinois campaign chairman. presence throughout the state, from the deep south to urban areas, also has interested people in his In addition to Hastert, the Plano Republican who intends to retire from Congress, the Romney delegate slate includes Rutherford and state Sen.

Dale Righter of Charleston as well as former state Sens. Steve Rauschenberger of Elgin, Walter Dudycz of Chicago and Doris Karpiel of Carol Stream. Also running as delegates for Romney are Karen McConnaughay, who chairs the Kane County Board, and Elizabeth Gorman, a Cook County Board member who also chairs the Cook County GOP. Former New York mayor Rudy campaign said it also had filled out a slate of delegates but would be announcing it at a later date. Although Republicans and Democrats hold their presidential primaries on the same day in Illinois, the contests and how they affect delegate selection are vastly different.

Among Republicans, voters will be able to cast a preference for a presidential nominee, but the selection is largely a because it has no bearing on the selection of nominating delegates to the national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul in early September. Instead, voters will cast votes to directly elect convention delegates from each congressional district who are pledged to a presidential contender or who list themselves as uncommitted. An additional 13 delegates, made up of top party officials, also will go to the convention as part of delegation. Democratic primary voters also will be able to vote for their choice of a presidential nominee, but that selection will affect the makeup of the delegation to the convention in Denver at the end of August.

Though voters also will cast votes for convention delegates from within each of the congressional districts, the choice of delegates will be based on the percentage that a presidential candidate receives in the congressional district. Any candidate who receives less than 15 percent of the popular vote in a congressional district is not entitled to any delegates from the district. Democrats will be sending 100 delegates from the primary to Denver, along with an additional 85 delegates appointed by and made up of top party officials. Democratic candidates have until Nov. 5 to file their delegate slates with the State Board of Elections.

Republicans file their slates a month later, after the selection process is made official. Hastert tops slate Ex-speaker seeks spot as delegate CAMPAIGN 2008 By John Dobberstein Special to the Tribune After years of court battles about its future, the former Kenosha Military Museum has quietly reopened across the border in Illinois, 2 miles from its longtime Wisconsin home. Gone are the tiny pole barn, porta- potties and field littered with military equipment that characterized the home in Pleasant Prairie. The new venue, which opened a month ago in unincorporated Russell, includes a brownand cream two-story building with 10,000 square feet of exhibition space. Inside are military pieces of every stripe: jeeps, tanks, armored personnel carriers and other equipment used in World War II, the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm.

Its most prized possession is a Sherman tank given to Israel by the United States.The museum also has one of two Vietnam-era patrol boats in the U.S. that are operational. The Sonday family of Antioch, which runs the museum, has spent $50,000 to bring the building up to code and landscape the exterior with shade trees, evergreens and ornamental flowers. The restoration shop will go across the street. kids, when they walk inside when lights are on the exhibition they are just dazzled.

Even the adults said Joyce Sonday, wife of museum director Mark Son- day.The Sondays hope the non-profit museum will become a tourist destination and a rendezvous point for war veterans. They considered sites in Union, and Racine, until they found and bought a former auto dealership property for $3 million. Yet the museum is still a work in progress. The Sondays are working to get a permanent occupancy permit. County officials said the museum has only a temporary permit pending the resolution of a zoning dispute over trailer storage.

A majority of the collection is still outdoors, including jets, helicopters, mobile generators, missiles, howitzers, anti-aircraft guns and searchlights. The Sondays plan to erect life-size outdoor dioramas of war eras to create a more dramatic background for some artifacts. They also want to expand the display area to get most vehicles indoors. Mark Sonday has added to his private collection for years, creating a popular roadside attraction for drivers along Interstate Highway 94 near the Illinois-Wisconsin border. The road to Russell been easy.

In 2002, Pleasant Prairie used eminent domain to condemn hundreds of acres, including the museum site and Mark van-conversion business, to make way for development along I-94. Village officials said the museum doubled as a military scrap yard and fit in with the corporate image they wanted their municipality to project. In 2006, an arbitrator awarded Mark Sonday a $3.9 million settlement, ending the condemnation process and giving the family enough cash to move the museum and pay $160,000 in legal fees. That left him with a major task: moving more than 200 vehicles, some weighing 20 tons or more, to a new site. Only a quarter could move on their own.

The museum has not been free of legal headaches in Illinois, either. Mark Sonday is headed back to Lake County court on Oct. 17to try to win more time to remove large trailers of gear that are parked on the museum site. The county ticketed the trailers, but Mark Sonday secured an order from a judge allowing them to be parked at the museum temporarily. Now the Lake County office is seeking to have them removed by mid-October, Assistant Atty.

Larry Clark said. Tribune photos by David Trotman-Wilkins Rob Schiebel fixes a door handle on a Vietnam War era AH-1 Cobra that is on display at the Russell Military Museum in unincorporated Russell. Military museum rises after fight Owners hoping new venue will attract tourists Helicopters line the grounds of the Russell Military Museum, where the most prized possession is a Sherman tank given to Israel by the U.S. By Liam Ford Tribune staff reporter Amid continuing turmoil at Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling, the airport vice chairman has announced his resignation, board members said Tuesday. L.

James Wylieof Prospect Heightssaid in a letter to the mayor of Prospect Heights that he would resign from the airport board effective Oct. 12, board members said. Prospect Heights and Wheeling share ownership of the general aviation airport, formerly known as Palwau- kee Municipal. Each suburb appoints three membersto the six-member board, and they share in the appointment of a board chairman. decision to step down follows the resignation last month of board Chairman Kevin Dohm.

Dohm resigned after Wheeling officials, includingthe airport treasurer, David Kolssak, accusedDohm of acting without board approval in hiring and approving payments to a New Jersey-based consultant. resignation came a day beforeRodney Pace announced that he would step down as mayor of Prospect Heights for health reasons. Wheeling Mayor Greg Klatecki had resigned earlier this year, citing a bad back. As a result of resignation, the airport board canceled a special meeting it had scheduled for Wednesday, though Wylie is to remain on the board until Oct. 12unless Prospect Heights names a replacement sooner, said Wheeling Village Manager J.

Mark Rooney. Rooney, who also sits on the airport board, said he had been at odds with Wylieover the release of information on the airport consultant, John Kennedy of Airport Corporation of America Inc. no secret that Mr. Wylie and I were not on the same Rooney said. Wheeling airport No.

2 man is taking off Russell Military Museum Address: 43363 Old U.S. Highway 41, north of Russell Road Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.every day Admission: $7.50 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under, free for children 2 and under Web: www.kenoshamilitarymu- seum.com If you go Product: CTMETRO PubDate: 10-03-2007 Zone: NNW Edition: HD Page: METROP3-3 User: jgoodrich Time: Color:.