YOUNGSTOWN Nurse fails drug test, gets 6 months in jail

Drugs were found in his system a month after he was placed on probation.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When David Kresenske said he'd made a mistake by using cocaine, he got Judge R. Scott Krichbaum's attention.
"You need to understand something," Judge Krichbaum said, swinging around in his chair and peering over his bench at Kresenske. "You doing drugs after I ordered you not to is not a mistake. This is criminal conduct."
For that conduct, Kresenske, an assisted living nurse, was sentenced Friday to six months in the county jail.
Kresenske, 42, of Mathews Road, Boardman, had been placed on probation by Judge Krichbaum in April, after pleading guilty to patient abuse. Authorities said Kresenske forced an 86-year-old woman to get out of her wheelchair and walk at Sunrise Assisted Living in Poland, even though she was screaming in pain.
No one knew at the time that the woman had a broken bone in her leg from an unrelated fall a few days earlier.
Assistant Prosecutor Patrick R. Pochiro said that a month after Kresenske was placed on probation, a random drug test showed opiates in his system. A condition of his probation was that he not take drugs.
Kresenske told authorities he had a prescription for the drugs, Pochiro said. When parole authorities asked for proof, he gave them a note written on a prescription pad, with a doctor's signature.
When authorities called the doctor to verify the authenticity of the note, he denied having written it, Pochiro said. Parole authorities later found out that Kresenske had written the note himself.
The positive drug test was a violation of his probation, so Kresenske was brought back before the judge, who imposed the six-month jail sentence and gave Kresenske credit for 30 days he's been in jail awaiting the hearing.
'Break of a lifetime'
Kresenske and his lawyer, James E. Lanzo, said the time Kresenske already had spent in jail was enough for him to learn his lesson, and they pleaded with the judge to release him on probation again.
"I gave you the break of a lifetime," Judge Krichbaum said, noting that parole authorities had recommended that Kresenske be jailed in the first place. "How can I possibly think about letting you go again when you have already shown me what kind of a guy you are?"
Kresenske said he had not used drugs in 13 years but was driven back to them by stress brought on by his criminal charges.
"Life is stressful. Being on probation is stressful," the judge said. "If you got back out on probation again then you would probably be stressed enough to use that stuff again."
bjackson@vindy.com