YOUNGSTOWN — Chante Childress, 52, of Kendis Circle was sentenced to six months of probation and no jail time Wednesday after pleading guilty to misdemeanor vehicular homicide in an early Dec. 22, 2020, South Side crash that killed a passenger in her car.

Childress was indicted on aggravated vehicular homicide and two counts of operating a vehicle while under the influence.

Childress’ plea agreement called for the first-degree felony aggravated vehicular homicide to be amended to a misdemeanor and for the operating a motor vehicle under the influence charges to be dismissed in exchange for her guilty plea.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Patrick Kiraly said there was a big change in the plea because indications that there was a second vehicle involved in the crash were not investigated. Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court also ruled in February to suppress evidence from blood and urine samples taken from Childress at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital the day of the accident.

According to reports, the crash happened near Overland Avenue and Garfield Street on the city’s South Side. Childress was driving north in a Ford Fusion that skidded off the road and struck the front porch of a Garfield Street home. The passenger, Darren Moore, 55, was found dead in the passenger seat by police. Childress was thrown from the vehicle.

Judge Durkin’s ruling on the suppression motion by defense attorney John Juhasz, stated that a traffic investigator, detective Steve Schiffauer of the Youngstown Police Department, went to the scene to investigate and found a bottle of alcohol outside of the front passenger door of the vehicle.

The vehicle had sheered off a fire hydrant on its way to the front porch. Schiffauer said he believed he went to the hospital the next day and obtained copies of Childress’ medical records showing a value of .210 of alcohol by blood, more than two times higher than the .08 allowed to drive in Ohio. But Schiffauer did not obtain a release for the records. He later obtained a search warrant for Childress’ blood and urine. They showed a value of 0.20 of blood alcohol level.

Schiffauer later admitted that the blood evidence had been discarded, but he had obtained Childress’ urine, which he submitted to the police department’s crime lab. He said he did not know what the officers from the crime lab did with the sample. Someone from the crime lab was responsible for submitting it to the Ohio State Highway Patrol for analysis, the ruling states.

The judge ruled that Schiffauer had the obligation to obtain a search warrant in order to obtain Chandress’ medical records. “His failure to do so violated (Childress’) rights guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment.”

Ohio Administrative Code establishes procedures “that must be followed in obtaining and testing blood and urine specimens,” the judge ruled. The code “requires that the blood be drawn with a sterile dry needle into a vacuum container with a solid anticoagulant, or according to laboratory procedure manual based on the type of specimen being tested. The specimen must be properly witnessed to assure that the same can be authenticated.

“In addition, the urine must be deposited into a clean glass screw top container, which shall be capped and properly sealed in a manner such that tampering can be detected. Finally, the specimen must be properly stored, refrigerated or transported,” the ruling states.

In the suppression hearing of Childress’ case, a nurse at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital testified that a resident doctor drew Childress’ blood sample based on their procedure in the trauma bay. But she “does not know anything about the urine, as her chart notes that she was not there when the urine was collected.”

As a result, the police department and prosecution “cannot show that it substantially complied with the Department of Health regulations,” so Durkin ruled in ordering suppression of the results of the blood and urine.