Salem man pleads guilty

An assistant prosecutor asked that the driver's license be suspended for 24 years.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- A man has pleaded guilty in a traffic death after serving 15 months in prison for the same offense.
Terry L. Endsley Jr., 30, of Newgarden Ave., Salem, entered the plea Tuesday to a charge of aggravated vehicular homicide before Columbiana County Common Pleas Court Judge C. Ashley Pike.
Sentencing is set for 10 a.m. July 31.
Endsley faces a sentence of up to five years in prison, the same term he was given originally.
Accident in 2002
He was indicted in 2003 on a charge of aggravated vehicular homicide for an accident Feb. 10, 2002 on Woodsdale Road in Butler Township that killed a passenger, Benjamin M. Kastanek.
Endsley was also seriously injured and spent months in the hospital, according to Tammy Riley Jones, an assistant county prosecutor.
The charge contended that Endsley was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A sample of Endsley's blood was taken after the accident for testing.
Endsley pleaded no contest to the charge and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Wins appeal
But his lawyers filed an appeal and the Ohio Supreme Court, and Seventh District Court of Appeal ruled that such tests had to be made according to strict rules under the Ohio Administrative Code. Those rules weren't followed and the blood evidence was excluded.
Judge Pike said from the bench, "With the exclusion of the blood, the complexion of the case changed."
Endsley was released from prison last year during the appeal.
He walked with a limp to the podium to enter his guilty plea. His lawyer, Melody Calhoun, said he would be troubled for the rest of his life by injuries from the wreck.
Lesser charge
He pleaded to aggravated vehicular homicide for reckless driving, a third-degree felony instead of the original first-degree felony.
Riley Jones said that Endsley would get credit for the time he already served in prison.
Endsley could also face up to a lifetime suspension of his driver's license. Riley Jones said that she would recommend Endsley lose his license for 24 years, the same number as Kastanek's age.
Riley Jones said she did not know what standards area hospitals are using to take blood samples in cases of traffic injuries that may involve drug or alcohol use.
She said she assumed that hospitals "would be concerned with saving lives" rather than following the administrative code.
A spokesperson from Salem Community Hospital could not be reached to comment.
wilkinson@vindy.com