For Immediate Release MADIGAN: LIFE SENTENCE FOR ROCKFORD MAN CONVICTED IN RETRIAL FOR 1992 DOUBLE MURDER Chicago - Attorney General Lisa Madigan today said that a Rockford man was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and armed robbery for his role in the 1992 murders of two men at a rural Stephenson County farmhouse. At a court hearing on Wednesday, Chief Circuit Court Judge William A. Kelly sentenced Ronald E. Burt, 40, of Rockford to a mandatory sentence of natural life in the Illinois Department of Corrections. A Stephenson County jury last month found Burt guilty at a retrial which was ordered after his original conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel. Burt’s original trial ended suddenly in 1993 when he entered a guilty plea during the proceedings in Stephenson County Circuit Court. He was charged with the January 1992 murders and armed robberies of Steven Roy, 48, and Kevin Muto, 18, while he, and two other men, burglarized Roy’s home near Kent. Burt was sentenced to death in 1993; however the sentence was later commuted to natural life by former Governor George Ryan. “We are pleased that the court has ensured that this cold-blooded murderer will never again be a part of society,” Madigan said. Bureau Chief Stephen Plazibat and Senior Assistant Attorney General Vincenzo Chimera prosecuted the case for Madigan’s Criminal Prosecutions and Trials Assistance Bureau at the request of the Stephenson County State’s Attorney’s Office.-30- |