Appellate Court affirms conviction for 2011 armed robbery
Defendant sentenced to natural life as habitual criminal
DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin announced last week that the Second District Appellate Court of Illinois has affirmed the Armed Robbery with a Firearm conviction of Luis Moreta, 46, formerly of Northlake for stealing $3,700 from a man he met on Craigslist. On December 5, 2014, a jury found Moreta guilty of Armed Robbery with a Firearm, a Class X Felony. On March 30, 2015, Judge John Kinsella sentenced Moreta as a habitual criminal to a term of natural life in prison.
On December 2, 2011, the victim drove to meet Moreta in the parking lot of an Addison apartment complex to purchase a motorcycle he had seen advertised by Moreta on Craigslist. After meeting one of Moreta’s accomplices, the victim and two friends of his were escorted to the back of the parking lot where Moreta and another man, both with their faces covered and wearing hooded sweatshirts, jumped out of a van and held guns to the heads of the victims. Moreta and his accomplices then robbed the victim of the $3,700 he had brought to purchase the motorcycle and fled the scene.
In his appeal, Moreta argued that the trial court improperly allowed a police officer to testify about cellular technology and that the State argued improperly during closing arguments. In its affirmation, the Appellate Court found that the officer “did not testify about ‘cellular technology’ … nor did he ‘interpret’ cellular phone records. He merely plotted the information from cellular records onto several maps.”
In rejecting Moreta’s claims concerning the State’s closing arguments, the Appellate Court found that: “Our review of the complained-of arguments does not reveal clear and obvious errors of any sort, let alone such seriousness that they affected the fairness of the defendant’s trial and challenged the integrity of the judicial process.”
Justice McLaren delivered the judgment of the Court with Justices Hutchinson and Jorgensen concurring.
