Crime & Safety
Man Charged With Trying to Put Hit on Mom Beats Case—Now Jailed For Allegedly Scaring Off Witness
The Chicago man has already done time for setting fire to the garage of his mother's Bolingbrook home.
A Chicago man beat a mother-murder-for-hire rap when the judge dismissed the case but went right back to jail on charges he scared off a witness.
Scott Rokita, 43, has been locked up in the Will County jail since March. He went there straight from Downstate Vandalia Correctional Center where he had pulled a seven-month bit for setting fire to the garage of his mother's Bolingbrook home in May 2012.
While in the county jail waiting on the disposition of that case, Rokita allegedly tried to hire a fellow-inmate to kill his mother.
While the jailbird would presumably be the key witness in that case, he wasn't the one Rokita allegedly scared off. Court papers identified the allegedly reluctant witness as Janine Hense and said Rokita "communicated" with her in such a manner as to "produce mental anguish or emotional distress."
The criminal complaint against Rokita also said he asked Hense not to testify and "induced" her "to conceal herself."
Hense was not charged with allegedly concealing herself.
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