Woman resentenced to prison for robbery in her absence

Sep. 9—URBANA — A woman who failed to show up at her resentencing hearing for robbery Friday has a date with the Illinois penitentiary.

Judge Randy Rosenbaum said that if Alexis Vanhook, 24, had at least shown up or shown him that she was taking medication for her mental health issues, he might have considered more probation.

Instead, Rosenbaum resentenced Vanhook, who last lived on Joanne Lane in Champaign, to three years in prison for robbing a man of a beer outside a Champaign liquor store after beating him up in the fall of 2021. She had been given 30 months of probation for that crime in December of 2021.

But the state's attorney took steps to revoke her probation when, in February, she tried to disarm a Champaign police officer. She later admitted to doing that, and her resentencing was set for Friday.

Assistant State's Attorney Chris McCallum asked for a prison sentence, saying that Vanhook has failed to do what she's supposed to do while on probation.

But her attorney, Assistant Public Defender Katty Sievers, asked the judge to give her more probation to address her myriad problems in a community setting.

Sievers told the judge that Vanhook was abused as a child by her adoptive family, recently had a brother die in a car accident, and has a history of mental illness exacerbated by her abuse of alcohol. She observed that Vanhook was intoxicated when she committed her underlying robbery offense, pleaded down from armed robbery, and when she tried to take the officer's gun.

"She acknowledges that alcohol interferes with her life," Sievers said, saying it was probably the reason she failed to show up for court.

She argued that Vanhook had already served six months in jail, which "seems like punishment enough for someone who is suffering."

But Rosenbaum said that given the multiple chances Vanhook has had to address her problems locally, it was unlikely she would do it if given another chance at probation.