Fox gets 10 years for assaulting two women

WHEATON — Warrenville resident Michael J. Fox will serve a total of 10 years in prison for two attacks on former girlfriends.

Fox pleaded guilty Thursday to domestic battery causing bodily harm with a prior conviction, a Class 4 felony, in exchange for a five-year prison sentence. The charges of attempted first-degree murder and unlawful restraint were dropped in exchange for his plea.

Fox accepted the plea offering on the day a DuPage County judge would have ruled on the admissibility of statements his then-girlfriend made to authorities the night of the attack. Shortly after the Feb. 28, 2007, beating, the woman suffered an aneurism that would have made it difficult for her to testify in the pending trial, prosecutors said.

The 38-year-old bricklayer was arrested the night of the attack at the Red Roof Inn, 1698 W. Diehl Road, after the woman, now 37, managed to escape from a room she shared with Fox and call police. He was charged with beating the woman and strangling her twice to the point of unconsciousness.

At that time, Fox was freed on bail and awaiting trial for the sexual assault of another girlfriend. The woman, now 40, was attacked Oct. 29, 2006, in her Naperville home on the city’s southwest side.

Because Fox also was on probation at that time for the 2003 stabbing of a man in a tavern near West Chicago, he was resentenced Thursday for that crime to five years in prison. That sentence will be served concurrently to the five years DuPage County Circuit Court Judge Robert Anderson approved for the domestic battery charge in Naperville.

Those concurrent five years for DuPage County crimes will be served consecutive to a five-year prison term Fox was given last month in Will County when he pleaded guilty to the 2006 sexual assault of his former girlfriend.

In addition to the prison sentence, the order of protection against Fox for the woman he beat in the Naperville hotel room will be extend to two years past his parole end date.

“The bottom line is this is a good deal for you,” Anderson told Fox. “Society cannot tolerate this type of conduct.

“You’re a bright person, and I think you can do some good things ... but don’t be back in front of me again,” he warned.

Fox’s arrest record dates back almost 20 years with more than a dozen convictions since 1988 of crimes that include aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, theft and criminal trespass to a residence.