$1M bond for boater charged in boy’s death
By Frank Abderholden fabderholden@stmedianetwork.com August 14, 2012 12:51PM
Illinois Department of Conservation police and Lake County sheriff's deputies investigate a fatal boating accident that occurred July 28 on Petite Lake. A boat struck a 10-year-old boy after he had fallen out of a water tube. | Joe Shuman~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: October 14, 2012 12:40PM
LAKE VILLA — A Bartlett man was being held on $1 million bond after the boat he was piloting — allegedly recklessly while drunk and high on cocaine — ran over a 10-year-old boy on Petite Lake on July 28, authorities said Tuesday.
According to the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office, 10-year-old Tony Borcia was wearing a bright-red personal flotation device in the water around 4:30 p.m. and was waving his arms trying to be seen by the Baja Outlaw power boat piloted by David Hatyina, 50, of Bartlett.
The young Libertyville boy had just fallen off the inner tube he had been riding on with his 12-year-old sister. His father, Jim, was turning their pontoon boat around to pick him up when his father noticed a large white boat “flying down the middle of the lake” and bearing down on his son.
“He and Tony’s two oldest siblings (an 18-year-old sister and 15-year-old brother) waved their arms and yelled toward the oncoming boat, and then they watched as Hatyina ran over Tony,” according to a statement from Ari Fisz, chief of felony review of the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Hatyina has been charged with reckless homicide and aggravated driving under the influence causing death.
Authorities said blood tests taken to the Illinois State Police Crime Lab revealed Hatyina had a blood-alcohol level at the time of the incident between .09 and .128 and that he had ingested cocaine within a matter of hours before the incident, according to a forensic scientist at the lab. The legal limit in Illinois for blood alcohol is .08. The scientist used retrograde extrapolation to determine what Hatyina’s blood alcohol level was at the time of the incident.
Investigators were also able to find a man who was on a boat on a nearby lake who believes he saw Hatyina and his boat hours earlier. He told investigators that a boat matching the description of Hatyina’s boat and a driver that matched Hatyina’s description was driving recklessly on the lake and at an excessive speed. He has no past criminal record and he was arrested Monday night after returning from Mexico.
The victim would have entered the fifth grade at Butterfield School in Libertyville Elementary School District 70, were he was reported to be a well-liked student leader.
“Tony was the sweetest, nicest boy,” his family said in a statement released to the media. “His smile lit up the room. He loved his family and his friends to no end. He will be so terribly missed,” they said a few days after the accident.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Unit and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation Police arrived on the scene shortly after the accident and the conservation police officially took the lead on the investigation.
“The events that transpired on Petite Lake . . . turned our world up-side-down and changed our lives forever,” the family said in a statement Tuesday by Waukegan attorney Donald Morrison, Borcia’s brother-in-law. Borcia is an attorney in Chicago.
“At one moment, (Tony Borcia was) enjoying a fun-filled afternoon with his family, smiling, laughing and having the time of his life. The next moment, he was taken from us forever,” the family said.
The young boy was pronounced dead at the scene by the Lake County Coroner’s Office after suffering a massive head wound.
The family said in the statement there are many victims in this “horrific event,” including his older brother, Joe, and sisters, Kaeleigh and Erin, who witnessed the incident, “a scene so horrific that it cannot be described in words.” His mother, Margaret, was home alone at the time and learned of her son’s death from her husband in a telephone call.
“Somehow, through the grace of God, our family will make it through this tragedy. But we will never be the same,” the family said.
“The Borcia and Morrison families have dedicated their lives as lawyers to promote the fair administration of justice. It is this system of justice that we now rely upon to punish this individual for killing our sweet and innocent Tony and deter others from acting with such conscious disregard for the safety of our children,” the family said.
