Man gets 60 years for killing Lake View restaurant owner; swears at judge
BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Sun-Times Media lfitzpatrick@suntimes.com Dec 15, 2011
David Sidener
Updated: January 17, 2012 8:17AM
An Indiana man was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in prison for the 2008 murder of a Lake View restaurant manager, but not before swearing at the judge handing down the sentence.
David Sidener, 53, of Evansville, was found guilty of murder after a jury trial in March.
During a hearing at the Cook County courthouse at 26th and California, Sidener told the victim’s brother that he didn’t commit the crime, then went on to call Cook County Judge Charles P. Burns “a lying son of a b----.”
“I know you came here seeking justice, but you’re not going to get that today.” Sidener said to Randall Hilderbrand’s brother, Robert. “The man who killed your brother is out there with you.
“I don’t care what this clown gives me,” he continued, turning to the judge. Then he pointed at Burns, mocked his voice and cursed at him.
Burns then sentenced him to the prison term, calling him “cold” and “calculating”, “dangerous” and “very manipulative.” Sidener could have faced life in prison for the October 2008 fatal robbery.
Prosecutors said Sidener left a Lake View bar with Hilderbrand and went to Lucca’s Restaurant at Southport and Diversey, where Hilderbrand was a manager. Sidener got Hilderbrand into the basement, beat and robbed him, bound him to a pole with electrical cords and tape, and left him there with tape over his nose and mouth to suffocate, Assistant State’s Attorney Jim Papa told the judge, asking for a stiff sentence.
Robert Hilderbrand described the brother 14 years his senior as his caretaker and friend, who kept him out of trouble. Randy could have dodged the draft at age 18 in 1969 because he was gay, but went anyway “because he felt it was his duty.
“I ask you to do what Indiana failed to do,” Hilderbrand said to the judge. “Put David Sidener in prison for the maximum allotted time so he can’t destroy another family the way he destroyed mine.”
Sidener already served a 30-year sentence in an Indiana prison on robbery charges. He was on parole for attempted murder when he killed Hilderbrand.
And while awaiting trial in the Cook County Jail, he cooked up a scheme to curry favor in his case with authorities by busting up a smuggling ring. Only he was the one who arranged, with folks from his hometown, for the gunpowder and ammunition smuggled in through a projector and DVD player mailed to the jail library program, authorities say.
Sidener said he convinced a jail therapist to receive the devices as “donations”. Investigators learned he’d arranged for another electronic device to be shipped to the therapist with pieces for a small “zip gun.” That package never arrived.
Those counts of possession of contraband in a penal institution were dropped as part of his sentencing.
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