Oglesby man pleads guilty to La Salle hammer attack

An Oglesby man could face up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to striking a man with a miniature sledgehammer.

Darnell C. Williams, 30, appeared Thursday in La Salle County Circuit Court and entered a blind plea to one count of aggravated battery, a Class 3 felony carrying two to five years in prison but with the possibility of probation.

Williams will be sentenced at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26. There is no sentencing agreement or cap on how much jail or prison time prosecutors could seek. Williams, in turn, will have an opportunity to ask for probation and address Chief Judge H. Chris Ryan Jr.

Williams was charged after La Salle police responded to a fight at 8:34 a.m. Jan. 1 in the 800 block of Bucklin Street. There, a 33-year-old Ottawa man had suffered a blow from a mini sledgehammer to the left side of his head, leaving what prosecutors termed a “major injury to his ear.”