After over two years of delays, two New Lenox business owners are set for trial in a Will County court this week for several alleged fraud and forgery charges that were dropped over the summer and refiled by the state.

Will County prosecutors on Monday dismissed charges of theft by deception and burglary against Jeffery Regnier, the owner of Kee Firearms and Training, and Greta Keranen, with Kee Construction. But three of the five charges they refiled in August remain.

Laura Byrne, a spokesperson for the Will County state’s attorney’s office, declined to comment or clarify the decision to drop the charges, saying the matter is pending and the trial is ongoing.

Regnier and Keranen still face a forgery charge, and Keranen is also charged with loan fraud and wire fraud. Both waived their right to a jury trial Monday, so the case will be heard and decided by Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, the same judge who denied the prosecutors’ request to reschedule the trial in July, which led to the state dropping the charges.

Regnier said it was a tough decision to choose a bench trial, but he said it came down to the technical details of the case. He said Bertani-Tomczak might better understand the case details because she has overseen it for about two years.

Regnier and Keranen were first charged with several felonies for fraud and theft in 2023 for various applications filed for Economic Injury Disaster Loan, Paycheck Protection Program and unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assistant State’s Attorney Nicholas Plattos said in court Monday he hoped dropping the two charges would cause a judge’s ruling on a related case to be seen as irrelevant in trial decisions.

Plattos referred to Will County Judge Jennifer Lynch’s July decision to return Regnier and Keranen’s four vehicles and Fidelity Investment accounts valued at $5.5 million, seized as a part of officials investigation. Lynch cited excessive fines in her ruling against the state. The defendants’ attorneys argued this ruling should be considered in the current trial.

Bertani-Tomczak said Monday she did not see how it was irrelevant and called the state’s arguments “convoluted.”

The remaining charges focus on whether the business owners lied about their gross monthly profits and ability to pay bills in their COVID-19 pandemic relief fund loan applications.

Jeff Regnier, owner of Kee Firearms and Training in New Lenox, in his store in 2022. (Alexandra Kukulka/Daily Southtown)

Bertani-Tomczak ruled Monday the business owners’ 2023 tax returns cannot be introduced during the trial. Prosecutors said the returns would shed light on the question and planned to call Paul Yaras from the Illinois Department of Revenue to describe the numbers in the tax returns.

But the defendants’ attorneys argued they did not receive the documents, which included hundreds of pages, until less than a week before the trial, not giving them enough time to review them.

Testimony in the case will begin Tuesday with the trial expected to last a few days.

The New Lenox business partners still face a second round of charges in Will County, including money laundering and filing a fraudulent Illinois sales and use tax return, that are scheduled for a status update Tuesday.

Kee Firearms closed after the initial charges were brought in 2023. The once popular gun shop was also a source of training for area gun owners.

awright@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/17/kee-gun-shop-trial-begins/ 

Google Sued For Allegedly Using Gemini AI Tool To Track Users’ Private Communications

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/17/2025 – 17:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/google-sued-allegedly-using-gemini-ai-tool-track-users-private-communications 

Paul John Bojerski was born to Polish parents in a German refugee camp a year after World War II ended. His family legally emigrated to the United States in 1952 when he was five.

More than seven decades later, the 79-year-old Sanford grandfather – still a man without a country – found himself in legal limbo in the Alligator Alcatraz detention camp in the Everglades, picked up on a decades-old deportation order authorities had previously chosen not to enforce.

Bojerski’s case is complex and unusual – the most bizarre one his immigration attorney says he has handled in 30 years – but also part of the Trump administration’s widespread effort to deport millions of immigrants who it claims lack legal standing to be in the U.S, even those who lived here for decades with full knowledge of immigration officials.

The retired optician, taken into custody late last month, was recently moved to the Krome Detention Center in Miami and has a bond hearing on Nov. 18. His family worries his health is failing while he’s in custody and fears for his future.

“It’s devastating,” said his stepdaughter, Sandy Adams, 57.

Adams has moved in with her 82-year-old mother, who has been rocked by her husband’s incarceration. “It’s difficult to see her go through so much. She just sits by the phone, waiting for my Dad to call.”

ICE has offered no comments in response to questions from the Orlando Sentinel about Bojerski’s case.

Upon arriving in the U.S., Bojerski’s family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, which is where he grew up. But he did not become a citizen as a child for reasons that are not clear. Run-ins with the law led to a later deportation order, but it was not acted upon. His attempts to establish permanent residency also failed.

So he remained in the U.S., checking in with immigration officials when required.

In July, Bojerski went to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for what he thought would be his usual routine visit. There he was told that if he didn’t voluntarily leave the country, ICE would deport him.

He was instructed to return to the ICE office in Orlando Oct. 30 with travel arrangements. But he could not make such plans as he has no passport and no country to return to, his lawyer said.

Paul John Bojerski (second from left) and several members of his family — including his wife, two stepchildren, his daughter from a previous marriage and granddaughter — went to Bahama Breeze in Sanford for one last meal together about two weeks before he was taken into federal custody on Oct. 30, 2025 and sent to Alligator Alcatraz. (Courtesy of Sandy Adams)

So he and six other relatives gathered at a Bahama Breeze restaurant in Sanford in late October for one last meal together before he had to report to ICE.

“At dinner, we laughed, told old stories, and just caught up on life,” Adams said. “I think every single one of us was somber inside, but we would not allow my dad to see it or feel it. We needed him to see us strong to help him remain strong.”

Bojerski attended the Oct. 30 meeting, then came out and told his wife he was being taken into custody pending a deportation hearing.

“He had been in there a long time and finally came out and said they’re deporting me and I just lost it,” said Gayle Bojerski, his wife of 37 years. “This was so unexpected.”

Since his eight-hour bus ride to Alligator Alcatraz, Bojerski’s health has gone downhill, his family said.

Prior to his incarceration he was able to walk on his own without assistance, but he is now using a wheelchair, Adams said. He has had three back surgeries for which he’s under continued medical care and was scheduled for a spinal procedure on Thursday, which he missed because of the detention. He has also been unable to get his regular medications.

Friday morning, he called to say he has bruises from the guards, Adams said.

“He fell out of his wheelchair and they left him on the cell floor for hours.” she said.

He told his family the detainees rarely get hot meals, a complaint shared by others held at Alligator Alcatraz.

Still, while he was at Alligator Alcatraz, Bojerski called his wife and stepdaughter daily. Now that he’s in Krome, the calls are less frequent because of the long lines to use the phone, they said.

“His phone calls are what keeps me going…as long as I can hear from him I know he’s OK,” his wife said.

Families and immigrant advocates have confirmed the unsafe, “inhumane” and unhygienic conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, including worm-infested food, overflowing toilets and lack of access to medical care.

State officials have disputed those descriptions.

David Stoller, Bojerski’s Orlando attorney, has sought to challenge his detention. His family has also reached out to U.S. Rep. Corey Mills, a Republican who represents Sanford, but to no avail.

Paul John Bojerski was born Zbigniew Janusz Bojerski  – a name he swore he never used during his lifetime in the U.S. – in a displaced persons camp in Lubec, Germany in October 1946 to Polish nationals.  The family emigrated to New York in January 1952, and he was admitted as a  lawful permanent resident under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service records.

From there the story of his residency grows tangled.

He was arrested as a young man in 1966 for larceny and then again in 1967 for receiving stolen goods.

While he was incarcerated, an immigration hearing officer in 1968 ruled that those convictions were considered acts of moral turpitude that violated the country’s immigration laws. He ordered Bojerski to be deported.

But when both Poland, which was under communist rule at the time, and West Germany refused to take him, he was released from prison and remained in the United States.

Bojerski’s efforts to have the deportation order tossed out failed. Still, in 1969, immigration authorities issued another order that allowed him to be released from custody and apply for employment authorization, Stoller said.

Bojerski was in trouble with the law again after that, convicted in 1972 of rape and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in 1975 and placed on parole for one year.

According to his wife, the rape charge was related to an incident at a fraternity party, where several other students sexually abused a young woman. Bojerski said he didn’t participate but was arrested along with the others. She said the other men took plea deals but he didn’t because he believed he did nothing wrong.

“He has never trusted the system since then,” Gayle Bojerski said.

After completing college Bojerski became an optician, working for the same company for more than 30 years. He eventually moved to Florida where he met Gayle in 1982, when she bought a pair of eyeglasses from him at the Montgomery Wards in Orlando.

Detail of a photo album page of the 1988 honeymoon of Gayle and Paul John Bojerski in Niagara Falls, copied on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (Courtesy of Gayle and Paul John Bojerski / Copied by Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

Bojerski and Gayle married in 1988 and went to Niagara Falls in Canada on their honeymoon. Because he crossed the border then and again during a trip to Mexico, without questions from immigration officials, he and Stoller have argued that he had fulfilled the obligations of the old deportation order.

He made that case when he applied for permanent residency but immigration officials did not buy it. His request was denied, and in 2010 the government issued a new supervision order.

He has been following that order ever since, without issue, until July when the ICE told him he was to be kicked out of the country where he’s lived for over seven decades.

Whenever Bojerski calls, his family is his first priority, Adams said.

“Each call he asks about all of us first and keeps telling us he is OK.”

Gayle Bojerski said she is not opposed to the government’s deportation efforts as long as they focus on the most violent immigrants – drug dealers and other “bad people.”

But they shouldn’t deport the farmers who put food on our tables, she said, or people like her husband, despite his old criminal record.

“He’s always done everything they asked him to do,” she said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/17/sanford-grandfather-ice-detained/ 

Briana Jaskevicius of Hinsdale began taking ballet lessons at Salt Creek Ballet only three years ago. But the talented 16-year-old Hinsdale Central High School junior has so much talent that she was cast in the lead role of Princess Clara in this year’s production of Salt Creek Ballet’s “The Nutcracker.”

The show, Salt Creek Ballet’s 39th annual production of “The Nutcracker,” will be performed at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Nov. 29 and 1 p.m. Nov. 30 at Hinsdale Central Auditorium, 5500 S. Grant St.

Prior to coming to Salt Creek Ballet three years ago, Jaskevicius studied ballroom dancing for three years at another studio.

“At my old studio they had ballet and I saw them doing it,” she said. “I thought it was so beautiful. I was looking for studios around where I live and I saw Salt Creek and heard a lot of good things about it, so I decided to go there.”

This will be Jaskevicius’ third year dancing “The Nutcracker” with Salt Creek Ballet. She played a variety of roles in the past two productions, including Party Girl, Arabian and Mirliton, among other roles.

Being chosen as Princess Clara this year “was a really amazing opportunity for me because it’s a way to show off my hard work to everybody, and it’s such a beautiful part.”

Briana Jaskevicius of Hinsdale dances the lead role of Princess Clara in Salt Creek Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker,” Nov. 29-30 at the Hinsdale Central Auditorium. (Morna Photography)

Jaskevicius described Princess Clara as “very curious and she has really big dreams and a really big imagination.”

The most difficult aspect of the role for the teen is partnering, she indicated, because it’s a new skill for her.

Jaskevicius praised the connection that the dancers in the company have made. “It’s like my second family, my second home,” she declared. “We all work so hard to make this production beautiful.”

The company’s two artistic directors, Erica De La O and Kristopher Wojtera offered high praise for the young dancer’s talent and commitment.

Wojtera said they asked Jaskevicius to play Princess Clara because “she’s very talented and capable of handling this challenging role and she looks beautiful in it. She wants to do the best that she can.”

“She’s a hard worker, dedicated and focused, and talented,” De La O added. “She’s very intelligent.”

Around 80 dancers will perform in “The Nutcracker” this year, including Salt Creek Ballet dancers, ages 6 to 17, young dancers from the Joffrey, and adult guest artists.

There are a couple of changes in the production this year compared to previous years.

“We have new Chinese costumes in our production this year,” Wojtera said. There’s also “a new addition to the fight scene with the small mice,” he said.

“We’re trying to add a little bit of humor in the battle scene with the soldiers,” De La O explained.

In terms of the entire production, “We’re making sure that it’s looking sharp,” De La O said.

Salt Creek Ballet’s productions of “The Nutcracker” always draw a crowd. De La O believes it is the quality of their productions and the attention to details.

The goal, she noted, is to assure that “a child can walk into that space and be inspired and be mesmerized.”

Tickets for the Nov. 29th performances are $48 for adults and $45 for children ages 12 and under and seniors 65 and older. Tickets for the Dec. 1 performance, which includes a Sugar Plum Party, are $58 for adults, $55 for children and seniors. At the party, audience members can meet the dancers and enjoy cookies and hot chocolate.

There will also be performances of the Salt Creek Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” on Dec 5-6 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, and Dec. 19-21 at the McAninch Arts Center in Glen Ellyn.

For reservations and additional information, call 630-769-1199 or visit saltcreekballet.org.

Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/17/salt-creek-ballet-nutcracker/ 

Helping people without a high school diploma earn their GED certificate 20 years ago, the downtown Waukegan-based Urban Muslim Minority Alliance  (UMMA) soon moved into providing food and teaching individuals the technology needed to use their education.

Since its beginnings, Hamaas Ibrahim, UMMA’s executive director, said the organization has found ways to help people find meaningful work, get healthy food, find appropriate housing and is now starting to further grow from its roots.

From learning how to seek employment, Ibrahim said the UMMA started to help with job placement, provided rental assistance to refugees and started offering affordable housing for families.

UMMA closed its food pantry on Grand Avenue, where it gave people prepackaged containers of groceries and opened the Harvest Market in August of 2024, at the intersection of 10th Street and McAlister Avenue, where patrons used shopping carts to select items they wanted.

Above the UMMA-owned market are four large apartments. Ibrahim said they are affordable units for families — a type of housing not readily available for people who need a reasonably priced place to live. The organization already had some affordable houses in the area.

UMMA took another step toward both building its services and meeting the needs of many of the people it serves when it purchased a former Catholic school adjacent to the expanded market. It will house the organization’s downtown operations and become an adult community center.

This onetime store is now part of the Harvest, expanding UMMA’s growing presence on 10th Street in Waukegan. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun

“The area is a food desert on the border of Waukegan and North Chicago, and people need a lot of resources in that specific area,” Ibrahim said. “The more resources we can put there, the more those resources are readily available for the community.”

UMMA conducted a town hall on Thursday at the expanded Harvest Market at the corner of 10th and McAlister in Waukegan to learn what people in the community want to see as the renovation of the approximately 25,000-square-foot former school is completed.

With an ambitious agenda to help bring services to an area where residents in need can walk or take public transportation to receive them, Ibrahim said UMMA hopes to increase its presence beyond the property it now owns.

“Our goal is to eventually buy the block,” Ibrahim said. “We’re not trying to move anyone, but if something becomes available, we may make them an offer.”

The former gym at a one-time Catholic school on 10th Street in Waukegan will be part of the adult community center UMMA is creating. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun

Now in the process of obtaining the necessary approvals from the city of Waukegan to start construction next year, Ibrahim said the community center will be completed in several phases with a goal of completing it in 2028. He hopes the first phase will be done in 2027.

Where classrooms and other school facilities once were, the three-level building is gutted to the studs. Ibrahim said it gives UMMA a “blank canvas” to create a community center meeting the needs of those in the area. The gym remains intact, where a variety of activities are possible.

UMMA’s administrative offices, now downtown on Washington Street, will occupy the second level. Ibrahim said it will be part of the first phase, along with services already offered and a fitness center.

“There won’t be weights and exercise equipment,” Ibrahim said. “It will be more for yoga, stretching and adult exercises. There will be classrooms where there can be (simultaneous) virtual classes online as well. We want to hear what the community wants.”

Fresh produce is one of the many choices patrons of UMMA’s Harvest Market can select. It is part of UMMA’s growing presence on 10th Street, which separates Waukegan and North Chicago. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun)

Other possibilities include a studio for podcasts. Ibrahim said UMMA will start its own podcast and make the space available for others in the community. He also sees using some of the space to help people develop skills with the trades like plumbing, electrical and carpentry.

While plans for the first phase are currently clear, Ibrahim said the second and third phases will be developed as the community’s needs are determined. The gym will be part of the second and third phases, as well as a kitchen for cooking classes and the building trade training.

“We’d like to have cooking classes to teach people how to make healthy meals,” he said.

Scott Hezner, an architect helping design the community center and bring it to fruition, said flexibility is an important part of the planning. As needs and wants are determined, the space can be adjusted.

Striped to its studs, the first level of UMMA’s adult community center on 10th Street in Waukegan is a blank canvas to help meet the neighborhood’s needs. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun

“This is a plan for flexible programming,” Hezner said. “You are the dreamers,” he added, speaking to the community members. “UMMA is the synthesizer of the dream.”

One woman in the crowd said she was very concerned about the homeless people in the community. She suggested showers and a place for the homeless to check in on a daily basis.

Marie W. Hall, a senior director at the Northern Illinois Recovery Community Organization (NIRCO), said at the meeting that many of the issues homeless people face stem from issues arising from substance abuse.

“Tenth Street has people in trouble because of this issue,” Hall said. “This is something we have realized we need to help the community.”

Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham was at the meeting as a community member and not in an official capacity. He said there are organizations like PADS that do a good job working with the homeless, just as NIRCO does with those in recovery.

“UMMA has created a niche and is expanding on it,” Cunningham said. “The community has (people) with needs and UMMA is helping to meet some of those needs. They’re using this building to help them meet those needs.”

Meanwhile, UMMA acquired a one-time store closed for years between the Harvest Market and the soon-to-be community center. Ibrahim said the organization is now using it for storage and a meeting room. It is incorporated into the market, and shares a wall with the community center.

Ibrahim said it is vital for the expanding market. It is now serving approximately 450 families a week — it spiked to 700 briefly when SNAP benefits were in limbo — and is open Mondays through Fridays. A year ago, it had 300 to 350 patrons a week.

The market is now open from 2 to 6 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, as well as from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays through Fridays. Wednesdays are reserved for seniors. Initially people could take 15 items. That has grown to 25.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/17/urban-muslim-minority-alliance-2/ 

You could say Vernon Area Public Library’s Mini Comic Con was filled to the maximum with about 1,700 people visiting over the five hours of the free Saturday event on Nov. 15 in Lincolnshire.

“It is our biggest day for sure for the library,” said Catherine Savage of Lake Zurich, the library’s head of communications.

The library’s Mini Comic Con has a history of nearly a decade, and “We are all really excited,” Savage said. “We work really hard to make this happen.”

A cosplayer in famed electronic music duo Daft Punk attire promotes classic “Moby Dick” literature at the Mini Comic Con at the Vernon Area Public Library on Nov. 15, 2025 in Lincolnshire (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)

The Mini Comic Con began at 10 a.m. It included storytime, meet-and-greets, plus photo opportunities with professional volunteer cosplay characters, superhero training challenges, a scavenger hunt, and opportunities to meet comic artists, among other activities.

“I just see the joy in everyone’s faces, kids and adults alike,” said Anne Rasmussen of Lake Bluff, library director, who greeted attendees in the welcome area.

“It’s just festive and joyous, it’s just a really great time to just come together as a community and have fun,” Rasmussen said.

Lan Fung of Morton Grove, the parent of Evren Fung, 3, said about the comic con, “It’s a little bit of everything for everyone and for all ages.”

According to Savage, the first Mini Comic Con was in November 2014. A contactless version in 2020 and 2021. The event was not held in 2022 or 2023, and it returned in 2024.

Savage said in an email that Mini Comic Con is a celebration of fandoms of all kinds. Its main goal is honestly just “fun.” It’s an excuse to wear your Halloween costume again, play some games, meet some artists, come home with some new comics and stickers, and art.

“It’s just fun to be with people who really like things, you know?,” Savage said in the email, “It doesn’t even matter whether they’re into the same thing as you. It’s good — especially for kids — to be in a space where they see lots of people liking lots of different things and they’re all being celebrated.”

Solange Cole-Burns, 3, of Mundelein bursts through the Hero Training Academy Super Rescue challenge at the Mini Comic Con at the Vernon Area Public Library on Nov. 15, 2025 in Lincolnshire (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)

People came in costume, with one person wearing a Daft Punk helmet and gloves. Professional cosplayers made volunteer appearances, including the Star Wars fandom players from The Midwest Garrison 501st Legion.

Bob Pieroni of Carol Stream, who handles public relations for The Midwest Garrison 501st Legion, portrayed a dark shadow trooper while his father, also Bob Pieroni, was a white stormtrooper.

“It’s important to be here today because we get to bring smiles to all the kids,” son Bob Pieroni said. “The Midwest Garrison is all about that.”

From left, Anne Rasmussen of Lake Bluff, library director, greets families including (in red shirt) Krish Sevak, 6, a kindergartener from Buffalo Grove and Krish’s parent Tinaz Sevak at the Mini Comic Con at the Vernon Area Public Library on Nov. 15, 2025 in Lincolnshire (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)

Probably the busiest station at the Mini Comic Con was the uber-popular KPop Demon Hunters craft table. KPop Demon Hunters is a 2025 animated hit film. People had to wait for their turn at the KPop craft station.

About KPop Demon Hunters, “They’ve been obsessed for a few months now,” said Daniel Liu of Lincolnshire, the parent of Clara, 12, a seventh-grader, and Thea, 4.

“K-pop has definitely been increasing in popularity over our lifetimes,” Liu said about K-pop influences, which include musical groups like NewJeans who have appeared at Lollapalooza.

KPop Demon Hunters attractions like this craft table had long waiting lines due to the show’s popularity. On the right, in a red Spider-Man hat, is Clara Liu, 12, a seventh-grader from Lincolnshire at the Mini Comic Con at the Vernon Area Public Library on Nov. 15, 2025 in Lincolnshire (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)

Making a Star Wars lightsaber craft using cut foam pool noodles was parent Anastasia Bodea of Buffalo Grove and children Angelina, 3, and Alexandra, 5, a preschooler.

To organizers and numerous volunteers, including local middle schoolers and high school students, “They did a great job,” Anastasia Bodea said with a smile.

According to the library records, the Vernon Area Public Library District was founded in 1974 and serves 44,000 residents of Lincolnshire, Prairie View, Long Grove, and parts of Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills, plus unincorporated Vernon and Ela townships in Lake County.

Karie Angell Luc is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/17/vernon-area-public-library-mini-comic-con/ 

US Designates Venezuela’s “Cartel Of The Suns” As Terrorists, But Its Existence Is Dubious

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/17/2025 – 16:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-designates-venezuelas-cartel-suns-terrorists-its-existence-dubious 

Just Spill The Beans Already…

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/17/2025 – 16:20

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/just-spill-beans-already