Two Park Ridge teenagers charged with receiving high-dollar-amount stolen goods from the Country Thunder music festival in Wisconsin in 2023 are moving ahead with deals offered by the Kenosha County District Attorney’s office to pay restitution and perform community service in Kenosha County, according to court documents. A third Park Ridge teenager charged with the same crime is getting prepared to go to trial.
Amelia Miulli, 19, and Thomas Bernatek, 19, consented to the deferred prosecution agreements offered by the district attorney’s office, which require both of them to pay one-third of the $20,000 restitution demanded by the victim, the music festival. That amounts to $6,666.67 each, but could go higher depending on the results of the trial of Morgan Timmons, 19, who did not sign such an agreement. Court records show that jury selection is to begin on September 23 for her trial.
Bernatek, Miulli and Timmons were charged with Class G felonies for receiving stolen admission wristbands, worth more than $10,000, to the Country Thunder music festival in July 2023, according to court records and a criminal complaint. Country Thunder originally set the the value of the tickets at $50,000, but lowered the restitution amount to $20,000 in January .
If Timmons is acquitted in her trial, Miulli and Bernatek would pay an additional $3,333.34 each to make up for the one-third of the restitution that Timmons would not pay, according to the agreements. A final pre-trial hearing for Timmons is scheduled for Aug. 15.
In addition to paying restitution, the conditions of the agreement signed by Bernatek and Miulli say that the two must serve 100 hours of community service in Kenosha County by May 5, 2025, write to the Kenosha County District Attorney’s office once every month until May 2025, avoid breaking any laws and refrain from contacting Timmons or another fellow graduate of Maine South High School who attended the festival, outside of their community service. If all the parameters of the agreement are met, the district attorney’s office agrees to dismiss the charges.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case, Country Thunder’s site manager reported a burglary to Kenosha County Sheriff’s deputies on July 23, 2023. The manager said the festival’s will call booth was tampered with after it had closed the previous night and admission wristbands worth at least $50,000 were missing. The site manager said he checked online sites and saw Bernatek posted some of the wristbands for sale.
Law enforcement officers set up a sting operation in which they arranged a meeting with Bernatek to supposedly purchase tickets. Once the officers confirmed that Bernatek had the wristbands, they detained him, according to the complaint.
A sheriff’s department investigation found Bernatek and Miulli texted each other about the wristbands, per the complaint , but Miulli later denied any knowledge of plans to sell them.
The defendants’ lawyers, based in the Kenosha area, did not respond to requests for comment.
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