Ex-con headed back to prison for BlackFinn Saloon stabbing
BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com December 15, 2012 12:40AM
Adam B. Hearn
Updated: January 17, 2013 6:43AM
A man who has already served hard time for attempted murder was ordered back to prison Friday, for having stabbed a security worker last year in a downtown Naperville nightclub.
Adam B. Hearn, 33, of Lombard, was sentenced Friday to 6 1/2 years in prison for the March 6, 2011 knifing of Sean Brutto of Naperville. Brutto, a North Central College graduate, was working early that morning as a bouncer at BlackFinn American Saloon, 16 W. Jefferson Ave.
DuPage County Circuit Court Judge George J. Bakalis on Oct. 12 found Hearn guilty of a felony charge of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, after acquitting him of the more serious charge of attempted murder in the first degree. Bakalis also imposed Hearn’s sentence.
Hearn served prison time for an attempted 1995 gang-related murder in Glendale Heights. He could have been imprisoned for the rest of his life had he been convicted of attempted murder in Brutto’s case.
BlackFinn staff members had asked Hearn and his girlfriend, Kelly L. Cihlar, to leave the bar after they were found smoking a cigarette in a women’s restroom, Naperville police said. Brutto asked the couple to smoke outdoors, at which point Hearn began verbally abusing him and other employees.
As Cihlar and Hearn were being escorted outside, a scuffle between Hearn and Brutto erupted, resulting in Brutto being punched in the face and stabbed in the abdomen. He underwent surgery at Edward Hospital in Naperville for a non-life-threatening stab wound.
Defense lawyer David R. Imielski during Hearn’s trial in October argued his client used a pocketknife to defend himself after Brutto put him in “a guillotine choke hold” that left him unable to breathe. Brutto had been a football player and wrestler while attending school.
Bakalis in October said while it was clear to him Hearn had been the aggressor in the confrontation, prosecutors failed to prove he intended to kill Brutto.
The penalty meted Friday by Bakalis failed to impress Tom Brutto, Sean Brutto’s father.
“We weren’t thrilled about it,” Tom Brutto said Friday of the 6 1/2-year prison term. “It’s just a shame. It’s very disappointing, very disappointing.”
Sean Brutto had been a close friend of Shaun R. Wild, the 24-year-old Naperville elementary schoolteacher who was fatally stabbed Feb. 4 during an altercation inside Frankie’s Blue Room, a nightclub two blocks south of BlackFinn. Tom Brutto said his son saw Wild “right before he died.”
“He’s going to get out and he’ll do it again,” Tom Brutto said of Hearn. “It happens in our legal system all the time.”
“This guy’s not done,” Tom Brutto said of Hearn. “He’s going to go right back into the gangs he was involved in, and he’s going to do worse.”
Hearn spent 250 days in DuPage County Jail following his arrest in Sean Brutto’s stabbing. He could be released from prison in about 18 months should he earn credit for good behavior. while serving his sentence.
