A Chicago man with a criminal record spanning four decades has been sentenced to six years in prison after committing a pair of break-ins less than 48 hours after his last release from the Illinois Department of Corrections.
The convictions are the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th times he has been sentenced to prison, with most of those terms being for burglary, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
Prosecutors said 59-year-old Vance Patton made the 227-mile trip from the Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro to Chicago after being released on March 20, 2025. By sunrise on March 22, he was back at work in Beverly, where video captured him throwing bricks through windows and stealing small amounts of cash and soda, prosecutors said.
Surveillance footage allegedly showed Patton breaking a window at a storage facility in the 1900 block of West 95th Street, entering the business, and taking a single dollar from the register. Moments later, he crossed the street to Flippin Flavors, 1848 West 95th Street, where he smashed another window and stole five cans of soda from the cooler, prosecutors said…