SECOND ATTEMPT TO THWART DRUG TEST LANDS MAN IN JAIL

If at first you don't succeed, it's not always wise to try, try
again.

James H. Day should have thought of that last year when he tried, for
a second time, to thwart a court-ordered drug test by bringing a bag
full of someone else's urine to McHenry County's probation department.

For a second time, Day's plot failed, this time when the bag sprung a
leak as he stood in a county office June 19 waiting to be tested,
sending his friend's urine spilling down his leg as a probation
officer looked on.

Now the 54-year-old Woodstock man is heading to the county jail to
serve a six-month sentence for unlawful defrauding of a drug and
alcohol screening test.

Day admitted guilt today to the felony charge under a plea bargain in
which he was fined $500 in addition to the jail time.

"Clearly he was not probationable," Assistant McHenry County State's
Attorney Sharyl Eisenstein said.

For Day, the jail sentence is an unlikely outcome for a string of
legal troubles that began on the Fourth of July 2004 when Crystal
Lake police arrested him for possessing a small amount of marijuana.
He pleaded guilty to a low-level misdemeanor charge about six months
later as part of a deal in which he received court supervision and
agreed to undergo three drug tests.

In July 2005 he was caught trying to pass off someone else's urine as
his own during one of those tests, leading to a felony charge that
eventually would be reduced to a misdemeanor as part of another plea
bargain.

The deal, however, included at least six more drug tests. And Day, it
seems, couldn't resist trying again to fool the test. After his
second attempt to thwart the test failed, Day admitted he had been
using marijuana again, Eisenstein said.

Day had been working in a clerical role for the McHenry County
Recorder of Deeds, county human resources Director Robert Ivetic
confirmed today. The office terminated his employment Friday, Ivetic
said, because of attendance issues not directly related to today's
court proceedings.

Day will be eligible for day-for-day credit while in jail, meaning
that with good behavior he could go free in about 90 days.