Fugitive Charged With Reckless Homicide Extradited After 24 Years

LAKE FOREST, IL — Police said a fugitive charged in connection with a fatal drunken driving crash in Lake Forest has been extradited back to the United States from Poland to face a charge of reckless homicide nearly a quarter-century after fleeing the country.

Marek Josko, then 42, was driving the wrong way on Route 41 around 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 9, 1995, when he struck another car and triggered a deadly crash, police said, citing accounts from several witnesses at the time.

Josko admitted to drinking and being involved in a crash, according to police. Officers reported he appeared disoriented and intoxicated. He was taken to Lake Forest Hospital, and staff took a sample showing he had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.19, police said, nearly twice the legal limit for intoxication at the time.

Dennis Bourassa, a 26-year-old Waukegan man, died from head injuries he suffered in the crash. Josko, headed south in the northbound lanes, first crashed head-on into a pickup truck driven by a 20-year-old Zion woman, nearly killing her, before Bourassa fatally collided with Josko's car.

"According to one of the officers who investigated the crash, retired Officer Bob Zacher, it would have been two fatalities if not for a car full of sailors driving alongside [Josko] in the [southbound] lanes," Deputy Chief Rob Copeland told Patch, "they rushed the female driver of the pick-up he hit head on to the ER."

Josko was initially charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and released on bond, police said On Dec. 18, 1995, authorities obtained an arrest warrant on the reckless homicide charge. But the next day, Josko fled the country.

Josko's attorney, Michael Krejci, was waiting at the Lake Forest police station, where Josko had promised he was going to turn himself in at 3 p.m., according to a Chicago Tribune report from the time. Instead, Josko had boarded a 6:20 p.m. flight to Warsaw from O'Hare International Airport.

Police were unable to track down Josko in Poland, and the case went cold until 2013, according to a statement from Lake Forest Police. As part of efforts by local prosecutors to close cold homicide cases, the Lake County State's Attorney's Mike Nerheim contacted Det. Mark Senger in 2014.

"I was contacted by a federal agency with information that Mr. Josko — who was wanted on a reckless homicide for a 1995 crash he was involved in — was hiding in Poland," Nerheim said Monday in a statement. "I was asked if we would be interested in bringing him back here to face justice in Lake County, and we immediately began working with Lake Forest Police and our federal partners to do so."

For the past six years, Senger has kept in contact with Bourassa's widow and other family members, as well as the original officers from the investigation "in an effort to keep the case alive for them," police said.

In recent years, the FBI and the U.S. Embassy Police worked to track Josko down so he could be extradited to Illinois to stand trial.

Josko, now 66, was finally located in February and arrested in the Polish city of Przemysl by municipal police there, according to Lake Forest police.

The coronavirus pandemic delayed Josko's extradition hearing until last week, police said. The U.S. Marshals Service took custody of Josko on Thursday, and its agents accompanied him back from Poland to Midway International Airport in Chicago.

Lake Forest police said they also worked with the FBI, the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs, the State Department, the U.S. Marshals' Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and international law enforcement agencies as part of the investigation.

The federal agents turned Josko over to the custody of the Lake County Sheriff's Office ahead of a bond hearing. On Saturday, he appeared in court before Associate Judge Elizabeth Rochford, who ordered him detained at Lake County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 cash portion of his bond. No updated attorney information was available for Josko, who is due back in court July 21 for a preliminary hearing.

Nerheim said Josko's extradition was a great example of cooperation between state, federal and international agencies.

"I know many years have passed since this incident occurred," he said, "but the family of the victim has not forgotten what happened, and neither have we."