Man gets 5-year term in prison for accident that killed passenger

YOUNGSTOWN — A 45-year-old Lake Milton man has been sentenced to five years in prison and a lifetime license suspension on an aggravated vehicular homicide charge dating back more than three years.

Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentence Monday on Marco A. Giovanni, of Grandview Road. Giovanni had pleaded guilty to the charge pertaining to a Dec. 25, 2004, single-car accident in which his passenger, Lee Booth, 23, of North Jackson, was killed.

In the 2:30 a.m. accident on Mahoning Avenue, just west of Newton Falls Road in Milton Township, the car Giovanni was driving went into and bounced out of a ditch and spun around, ejecting Booth, said Robert J. Andrews, assistant county prosecutor.

Andrews recommended a five-year prison term for Giovanni.

The long delay in concluding the case was due to a change in defense lawyers, the defense’s consultation with an accident reconstruction expert, and a dispute over admissibility of a blood-alcohol test, which the judge excluded from evidence, Andrews said.

The Canfield Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol investigated the accident.