In a McHenry County courtroom Tuesday, an Illinois Department of Transportation worker told the woman who admitted to hitting him on a Marengo road that although his “life has changed forever,” he forgives her.

The 31-year-old man gave his victim impact statement after Starlet A. Stoffel, 31, of Shannon in Carroll County, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery/causing injury to a worker and speeding in a construction zone.

Judge Mark Gerhardt sentenced Stoffel to two years of felony probation, and ordered her to continue with mental health treatment and to pay $3,818 in fines and fees. Her driver’s license will be suspended for six months to two years – a decision that will be made by the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office.

Assistant State’s Attorney Margaret O’Brien said that on July 10, 2024, when the Illinois Department of Transportation worker pointed a handheld “stop” sign toward Stoffel in a construction zone, there was a verbal exchange between the two, and Stoffel “accelerated and hit him, sending him over the hood of her vehicle.”

Stoffel did not say anything during Tuesday’s hearing, but she wept audibly as the man gave his statement. He said his “life changed forever” when she hit him.

“I was just doing my job,” he said.

Today, with four screws and two rods in his back, he moves slower and is not able to work as he once did or play with his two children the way he used to. His children and wife had to watch him “struggle to walk again.”

“You could have left two kids without a dad,” he said, adding that he is “not here for revenge.” But he said he wanted her to know what she did to him and how it has affected his life.

“I do forgive you,” the man told her.

He concluded by saying that people “should do what we can to help [others] and not hurt them.”

During Stoffel’s first court appearance last year, Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Miller said Stoffel “deliberately struck an innocent road worker” while the IDOT crew was out resurfacing the westbound lane of Grant Highway.

At least six witnesses told authorities that Stoffel did not stop when the IDOT worker held up the stop sign, instructing her and a line of vehicles behind her to do so, Miller said.

Stoffel rolled down her window, argued with the worker, and then, as he walked toward her, she “hit her gas and hit him,” Miller said.

When police approached Stoffel afterward, she appeared to be unaffected by having hit the man and was not upset or crying, the prosecutor said. Stoffel asked whether the officer was “from the multiverse,” Miller said. She was taken to a hospital for a psychological evaluation that day, according to earlier reports.

During the initial hearing, Gene Wilson, an assistant public defender appointed to Stoffel’s case, said that when she hit the worker, “she appeared to be in some type of mental health crisis.”

Wilson said Stoffel told authorities that the car “could not stop,” and as the worker was walking toward her, she was telling him that. Stoffel suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorder and autism, the defense attorney said.

Stoffel told the presiding judge at her initial appearance that she has a treatment plan and has been following it. She also said she had psychosis induced by marijuana use.