DuPage County assistant state’s attorney Michael Wolfe was honored Wednesday with the Chicago Crime Commission’s inaugural Mitchell Mars Prosecutor Excellence Award.

Wolfe is chief of the criminal bureau of the state’s attorney’s office and has prosecuted some of DuPage’s most notorious crimes, including the serial killings committed by Paul Runge and the 1995 murder of a pregnant Addison woman and her two children.

DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett who nominated Wolfe for the award, called him “a tenacious prosecutor in the courtroom and as compassionate as a person can be in dealing with crime victims and their families.”

The award, which was presented during the commission’s Stars of Distinction 2008 dinner at Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, is named in honor of Mars, an assistant U.S. attorney who tried many organized crime cases. He was the lead prosecutor during the 2007 landmark Family Secrets mob trial.

Mars died in February at age 55.