Woman gets 90 days for fatal 3-car crash

VERMILION – A Vermilion woman was sentenced to 90 days in jail and will lose her driver’s license for two years for causing a three-car crash that left 17-year-old David Ryan Kelm dead.

Allison Priess, 21, also was ordered to pay fines and court costs totaling $1,300 and to perform 200 hours of community service during a sentencing hearing in Vermilion Municipal Court on Thursday.

Priess entered a plea last month to a misdemeanor charge of vehicular homicide in connection with the July 12 accident in Vermilion Township.

The Ohio Highway Patrol said at the time of the crash that Kelm died of injuries from the crash that took place at state Route 60 and Darrow Road in Erie County.

Woman pleads  no contest to DUI

ELYRIA – A county judge’s court reporter pleaded no contest Friday to a DUI charge.

Tracy Reiman, 41, was sentenced to pay a $500 fine and attend a 72-hour driver training program. She also had her license revoked for six months, although she will retain work driving privileges, according to Elyria Municipal Court records.

Reiman, who works for Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge, was pulled over in Nov. 21 in the LaGrange village square after someone called the Ohio Highway Patrol to report she was driving erratically.

Reiman reportedly told the LaGrange police officer in slurred speech that she had two glasses of wine, but failed field sobriety tests. A test administered later determined she had a blood alcohol level of 0.26, well above the legal limit in Ohio of 0.08.

Teen pleads guilty   to drive-by shooting

ELYRIA – An Elyria teenager pleaded guilty Friday in connection with a 2008 drive-by shooting and for opening fire during a 2007 Oberlin house party.

Roderick “Chubs” Cross Jr., 18, could get up to 74 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year, his attorney, Doug Merrill, said during Friday’s hearing when he asked Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Miraldi to release Cross on bond.

Miraldi rejected the request.

Cross entered guilty pleas to attempted murder, felonious assault and having weapons under disability for the Nov. 10, 2007, shooting during which Matthew Jones was shot in the back and leg. The shooting was the result of an old grudge Cross carried because of a 2005 fight at the Oberlin High School football homecoming game.

Judge orders man to pay stand-off tab

ELYRIA – A county judge has ordered an Elyria Township man to pick up the $9,855.46 bill for a 13-hour standoff with county sheriff’s deputies last February.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge also placed Ronald Pleban, 66, on probation for five years.

Burge found Pleban guilty of inducing panic and attempted aggravated menacing after a bench trial last year.

Deputies reported they went to Pleban’s Murray Ridge Road home on Feb. 26, 2009, after they were called by former county computer worker Karen Pleban, who is Ronald Pleban’s wife.

She told deputies that her husband threatened to shoot her and the couple’s dogs when she told him she was leaving him. During the trial, Karen Pleban testified that she didn’t believe her husband would follow through on the threats.

When deputies arrived, Ronald Pleban warned them he had taken precautions to protect himself from sniper fire and refused to come outside, according to Burge’s ruling in the case.

Man faces more drug trafficking charges

ELYRIA – An illegal immigrant from Mexico already facing charges of selling high-grade crystal methamphetamine has been indicted on additional drug trafficking charges.

The new charges against Jesus Maciel-Valadez, 31, are two counts of trafficking in methamphetamine with a major drug offender specification and two counts of possession of methamphetamine, one of which carries the major drug offender specification.

The charges stem from an undercover drug buy earlier this month in which Maciel-Valadez was caught with 18 ounces of crystal meth with a street value of more than $100,000.

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