Staff photos / Guy Vogrin Michael Malvasi, 30, of Canfield, reacts to the guilty verdicts reached by a Mahoning County jury in his aggravated vehicular homicide trial that concluded Tuesday in the Common Pleas courtroom of Judge Maureen Sweeney.

YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County jury took about three hours Tuesday to convict a Canfield man of six charges, including two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, for causing the Nov. 18, 2017, accident that killed Ryan Lanzo in Canfield Township.

A solemn Michael Malvasi, 30, looked back at family members several times as Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney read the guilty verdicts and then polled each juror. Malvasi was taken into custody, led away by deputies in handcuffs to the Mahoning County jail. The defendant mouthed to loved ones that he’ll be all right.

Malvasi is being held without bond, and Sweeney has not scheduled a sentencing date yet.

Assistant Prosecutor Michael Yacavone said the defendant faces a possible 14 to 17 years in prison as a maximum sentence.

Yacavone hugged members of the Lanzo family after the verdicts were read and shook hands with Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews and two members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol who helped with the investigation.

Prosecutors successfully convinced the jurors that Malvasi crashed his father’s Mercedes Benz on the S curve of Shields Road in Canfield Township early on Nov. 18, left the scene, returned in another car to pick up Lanzo, then drove Lanzo to Malvasi’s Canfield home — all without calling 911.

“Justice was done today. We were blown away by the patrol’s investigation,” said Yacovone, who said he had talked to jurors after they were dismissed. “I can be sure they went through everything (evidence). I respect the way they came to their decision.”

Yacovone said jurors told him they were impressed with the professionalism both sides displayed during the six-day trial.

“They told us their faith in the system was renewed,” Yacovone said.

Defense attorney John Juhasz said he had no comment about the verdict.

Malvasi was charged with two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, two counts failure to stop after an accident, tampering with evidence and a misdemeanor OVI. Jurors rendered special verdicts for the failure to stop because the accident caused a death.

Earlier in the day, Yacovone told jurors in closing that it was their time “to show Mike Malvasi what accountability is.”

In his closing, Juhasz said the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Malvasi was the driver, citing evidence that Lanzo’s cellphone was found on the driver’s side of the vehicle and that Lanzo’s internal injuries could have been caused by the steering wheel.

“There are reasonable doubts about the heart of this case, the accident itself,” Juhasz told jurors.

Yacovone countered that Juhasz’s points were “mere possibilities, what-ifs that are not a valid basis for reasonable doubt.”

The trial saw a long line of state’s witnesses including more than a dozen who had put Malvasi and Lanzo in two bars drinking hours before the accident.

On Monday, a former trooper who reconstructed the accident demonstrated that his study of photos of Lanzo’s injuries and the way the car flipped showed that Lanzo was the front-seat passenger.

In his opening statement July 5, Malvasi insisted he was not the driver.

The vehicle rolled left at least two times, which would have thrown Lanzo and Malvasi up and to the left of their seated positions, the testimony from former state trooper Christopher Jester showed. The driver of the car would have been thrown toward the driver’s door. Photos of the car showed a deployed air bag between the driver’s seat and the driver’s side window.

Jester testified Lanzo was ejected from the car through the sunroof and was “caught” on the semi-circular left rear part of the sunroof as the car rolled after hitting the pine tree.

gvogrin@tribtoday.com