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WARREN -- A Leavittsburg man who was a driver for the Amish community on Thursday pleaded guilty to two charges from a July 2021 traffic crash -- while he was driving some clients for a night on the town.
Michael Perry, 31, of Riverside Drive NW, pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated vehicular assault and operating a vehicle under the influence.
Perry faces a prison sentence up to 18 months and a driver's license suspension between one and five years. He will be sentenced by Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald J. Rice after he undergoes a background investigation conducted by probation officers.
The plea hearing headed off a scheduled Sept. 26 jury trial.
Perry remains free after posting a $5,000 bond.
The case is linked to an investigation by Warren police officers who were called to Trumbull Regional Medical Center about 2:55 a.m. July 25, 2021, to interview people who were involved in a crash. The vehicle struck the side of a bridge in Weathersfield after the group left a gentlemen's club in Austintown.
At the hospital, Warren fire crews were dispatched to help extract a passenger from the vehicle. A hospital security guard and multiple nurses had tried unsuccessfully to open the passenger door, the report states. The passenger had to be taken to the emergency room on a back board while wearing a neck collar.
The other passengers told officers that the front seat passenger, who was injured, had his right arm out the window and his face was barely out the window when the vehicle hit the bridge, the report states. But they couldn't say if the man's head hit the bridge or the vehicle's sideview mirror flew back and hit him.
The passenger, identified as a 23-year-old Middlefield man, suffered head injuries and arm, wrist and hand fractures, the report states, and had to be flown to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for further treatment.
The driver had submitted to a blood test, which found him legally intoxicated, the report states.