Man sentenced in Ecstasy case
BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com January 10, 2013 8:24PM
Eric L. Pappalardo, 19, of Naperville’s south side, has been placed on probation and ordered to do community service work, after being found guilty of having Ecstasy pills in his car last summer during a traffic stop not far from the Naperville police station. | Courtesy of Naperville Police Department
Updated: February 14, 2013 6:38AM
A 19-year-old man arrested last summer after Naperville police found three Ecstasy pills in his car has been placed on a special form of probation and ordered to perform community service work in that case.
Eric L. Pappalardo pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of possession of a controlled substance, according to records on file in DuPage County Circuit Court in Wheaton. Companion charges of possession of 2.5 grams or less of marijuana, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia and disobeying a traffic control signal were dismissed in exchange for that plea, records indicated.
Judge Blanche Hill Fawell accepted Pappalardo’s plea and placed him on two years of “first offender controlled substance probation,” records showed. Pappalardo, under the terms of that probation, must submit to and pay for at least three periodic drug tests.
Fawell also ordered Pappalardo to perform 30 hours of public service work, according to records. She also assessed a total of $1,197 in fines and legal costs, records indicated.
Pappalardo lives on the 500 block of Seville Avenue. He was arrested about 12:19 a.m. Aug. 7, a Naperville police spokesman said.
An officer on patrol was watching as Pappalardo drove his black, 2001 Mazda Protege south on River Road and through a red traffic light at its intersection with Aurora Avenue, the spokesman said. The officer curbed the car near Goldenrod Drive and River Road, several blocks to the south.
The officer “could smell the odor of cannabis coming from within” Pappalardo’s car, the spokesman said. A subsequent search of the car yielded a small plastic bag containing marijuana, “a cannabis smoking pipe (and) three pills suspected of being Ecstasy,” the spokesman said.
Court records showed Pappalardo has received a number of traffic tickets in DuPage County and Will County, but has no prior criminal record.
