A former Springfield City Council candidate who was sentenced to two years of probation for child endangerment after the 2024 drowning death of a 7-year-old foster child in his care could be headed to prison after being charged with methamphetamine possession.
David Yankee, 50, has pleaded not guilty to the felony drug charge and to a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. He hasn’t yet entered a plea on State’s Attorney John Milhiser’s petition to revoke Yankee’s probation. Milhiser contends that Yankee’s alleged criminal conduct involving drugs violates the terms of his probation.
Yankee failed to appear for an initial hearing Aug. 12 on the probation revocation request, prompting Sangamon County Associate Circuit Judge Jack Davis Jr. to grant Milhiser’s request to issue a warrant for Yankee’s arrest. But the judge agreed to cancel the warrant about an hour later, when Yankee’s attorney, Dan Fultz, told the judge that Yankee was “in drug treatment.”
The initial hearing on the probation revocation now is scheduled for Aug. 13. That hearing is expected to set the stage for a future hearing at which Davis could hear evidence and make a ruling on whether to revoke probation and possibly send Yankee to prison.
Fultz declined to comment to Illinois Times.
Yankee was arrested on meth possession on July 21 and released because defendants facing that charge aren’t eligible for detention under the state’s 2021 Pretrial Fairness Act and the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act.
Yankee pleaded guilty on April 16 to three of the four child endangerment charges against him in the drowning case as part of a plea deal in which Milhiser dropped the fourth charge. The penalty associated with Yankee’s guilty plea ranged from probation to a prison term of between two and 10 years, with the potential of a 50% reduction in time served with good behavior.
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Former foster father charged after boy’s drowning
Yankee, a former financial adviser who ran unsuccessfully in 2023 to represent Ward 4, was charged with child endangerment in connection with the death of 7-year-old Barrett Koches and potential harm to two other foster children: Barrett’s 4-year-old brother, Ryder, and an unrelated 10-year-old boy.
All three children were home without adult supervision for more than an hour at the home of Yankee and his husband, Michael Yankee, who wasn’t charged, authorities said. During that time, Barrett drowned in the home’s uncovered, in-ground backyard swimming pool shortly before noon on March 16, 2024, in the 2300 block of Winnebago Drive.
Police said Michael Yankee was at work at Kohl’s at the time of the incident. David Yankee left to go to Walmart on North Dirksen Parkway and later told police he planned to only stop at a bank inside the store so he “could take the children downtown,” according to police reports.
Police said Yankee “got distracted in the clearance and Easter aisle, so he took longer in Walmart than expected.”
Police and other emergency responders learned about the drowning after the 10-year-old boy ran to the front of the house and got the attention of a FedEx driver who then called for help.
According to police, the 10-year-old said Ryder threw a brick into the shallow end of the pool, which prompted Barrett to jump in to retrieve it.
Barrett threw the brick out of the pool and tried to get out but slipped in the shallow end and, “as a result, slid into the deep end,” police reports said.
Yankee told Illinois Times in November 2022 that if he won his race for City Council, he eventually would like to run for higher office to improve the state’s foster-care system.
Yankee’s recent arrest took place at about 8 p.m. July 21 in the Springfield Park District’s Carpenter Park after an anonymous caller told police a man was smoking methamphetamine in the park’s pavilion.
A Springfield Park District Police report said Yankee told an officer that he came to the park to smoke meth out of a glass pipe and “possibly meet with someone.”
The report said police recovered a meth pipe and then found 8.5 grams of methamphetamine in the vehicle after Yankee told police that he wasn’t sure what else was in the car except for “THC and sex toys.”
Yankee, who now lives in the 1800 block of Gregory Court, was arrested without incident, police said.
If convicted on the meth possession charge, Yankee could be sentenced to probation or a prison sentence of between three and seven years, with 50% off for good behavior.
Barrett Koches’ mother, Jamie Hartman, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The boy’s father, Jeff Koches, couldn’t be reached.
