Man is no-show in court but gets 19 years for supplying drugs in Harvard, Algonquin fatal overdoses

Although he was not in the courtroom, a Chicago man was sentenced to 19 years in prison Thursday for the 2019 fatal overdoses of a Harvard man and a woman who died in Algonquin.

Rufus McGee, 34, pleaded guilty in November to unlawful manufacturing and delivery of 1 to 15 grams of fentanyl in connection with the death of Robert Gibson, 45, of Harvard, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

He also pleaded guilty to drug-induced homicide in the death of Shannon D. Finn, 22, of Elgin, and was sentenced to six years in prison, according to judgment orders filed in McHenry County court. Finn was staying in an apartment in Algonquin, where she died, authorities said. Before their deaths, both Gibson and Finn ingested fentanyl-laced heroin purchased from McGee, according to court records.

McGee is being held in the DuPage County jail on unrelated drug and weapons charges and refused Thursday to be taken to Woodstock for his sentencing in McHenry County court, a McHenry County jail official said.

The day before her death, Finn traveled to a mall parking lot in Oak Brook with three others and bought heroin laced with fentanyl, authorities have said. Finn ingested the substance and died the next morning, according to court documents.

Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Miller wrote in a motion filed in the courthouse that McGee ran “an extensive drug business” with “multiple employees who delivered drugs on his behalf, daily, throughout the Chicago suburbs.”

McGee was charged in Finn’s death along with another man, Sabastian Zarbock of Crystal Lake. In 2021, Zarbock was found not guilty of drug-induced homicide but convicted of a lesser charge of possession of a controlled substance, court records show. Zarbock had been accused of assisting Finn in arranging the heroin deal shortly before Finn died, but in 2022, an appeals court overturned the drug possession conviction and dismissed the case with prejudice, court records show, meaning that he cannot be retried on the charge.

McGee is required to serve the two sentences consecutively. He must serve half of the manufacturing and delivery charge and 75% of the drug-induced homicide charge. He is receiving credit for time served in jail, which as of Thursday was 1,209 days. When released from prison, he will serve three years of mandatory supervised release, according to court orders.

An attempt to reach McGee’s attorney for comment was not successful.