Woman battles charge

A woman says she has 'a life sentence' without her grandson.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- At a restaurant in April 2005, 22-year-old Michael Fox had a couple of glasses of wine.
Later, he and two friends piled into his two-seater Porsche and took off.
In Canfield Township, he drove off the edge of Palmyra Road.
He broke his neck, and his friends were thrown from the car and injured. The Porsche caught fire.
At the hospital, he told his grandmother: "I know you hate me."
She assured him she didn't.
Later, when he went to look at the Porsche, he said: "Grandma, I shouldn't even be here." He began to cry. "God gave me a second chance."
Fox set about making the most of that chance.
What he did
Determined to make his first million by his 24th birthday, Oct. 31, 2008, he wrote out a check to himself and dated it. It's framed and on a shelf behind his bed at his grandmother's Cavalcade Drive home, where he lived.
His grandmother, Leona Little, has no doubt he would have cashed that check. She proudly listed his ambitious ventures.
He was a real estate agent and a model. He was a graphic designer at his uncle's sign shop in New Springfield and was planning to start a landscaping business. A car buff, he planned to sell chips and salsa from a trailer at car shows.
He had a girlfriend to whom he was very close; Little believes they would have married.
Fox spent June 24, 2006, at a car show in Salem getting his chips-and-salsa business off the ground.
Little was there, along with her daughter Kelly Baer.
Around 11:30 p.m., Fox gave his Aunt Kelly a hug and kiss and got into his new red Mercury Milan, which he'd won in a magazine contest and had attempted to sell at the show.
He and Little were driving in separate cars back to Austintown. She left a couple of minutes after he did.
He was on state Route 62 in Green Township, heading toward Canfield, when a black Pontiac Grand Prix going 74 mph in the 55-mph zone crossed the center line and slammed into his car. The second chance that night went to the Grand Prix's driver, 20-year-old Michael Zimbardi of Boardman. He suffered scratches and scraped knees, the Ohio State Highway Patrol's accident report notes.
Fox died of severe trauma at the scene.
Came upon wreck
Little, who had tried to call Fox on his cell phone to warn him to be careful on the drive home, came upon the wreck after the OSHP had already blocked it off.
She was worried because he hadn't answered his cell.
"So I tried to walk up to the scene. I asked the officer, 'Was there a Milan involved?'"
She supposes the Milan must have been unrecognizable to them. "They said no."
"So I went home and called my daughter. I said, 'Something's not right, Kelly. He always calls.' But when he didn't come home, I thought he went to Jen's, his girlfriend's."
"So I went to bed," she continued. "At 2:30, the doorbell rang. I opened the door -- there was the coroner and the highway patrol. They asked: 'Does Michael Fox live here?' I said, 'Not anymore -- he just got killed on Route 62, didn't he?" It was her birthday.
Fox, who had pleaded guilty to felony aggravated vehicular assault in the 2005 wreck that injured his friends, never faced sentencing. It would have been in July.
Other court case
Now, Little is concerning herself with a different court case. Zimbardi, charged with misdemeanor vehicular homicide, pleaded no contest Jan. 30 and was found guilty in Sebring County Court. His sentencing is pending.
Little believes assistant prosecutor Marty Hume should have charged Zimbardi with aggravated vehicular homicide, a felony, because of the excessive speed. That charge implies recklessness rather than negligence.
The sentence for vehicular homicide is a maximum of six months, rather than the maximum of 18 months for the aggravating circumstance.
"He'll get six months, while we get a life sentence," Little said. She and 500 other people signed petitions protesting the charge, she said. The petitions were given to the court's bailiff in December, who said he gave them to Hume.
Little believes Hume charged Zimbardi prematurely, before an accident reconstruction report showed the Grand Prix's speed to be 74 mph. OSHP trooper Christopher Jester, who prepared the report, said he gave a verbal estimate of speed, which was between 45 and 75 mph, before the report was final.
Reached last week, Hume said he did not want to comment on the reason for the lesser charge. His boss, county prosecutor Paul Gains, is familiar with the complaints about the case.
Gains said he believes Hume did his homework but that Hume did not believe a grand jury, which considers felony charges, would have returned an indictment.
"Less than 20 miles over the limit doesn't amount to recklessness," he said.
2004 case
Gains recalled a 2004 case in which an 18-year-old man crashed in Mill Creek Park while doing 54 mph in a 25 mph zone. Three teenagers riding with him were killed. "The grand jury refused to indict. It was sent back as three misdemeanors," he said.
Austintown resident Tom Spicker, 16, also was going 54 mph in a 25 mph zone Sept. 26 when he lost control of his car and hit a tree on Idlewood Road. The wreck killed a 16-year-old classmate, John Coudriet, and severely injured a 14-year-old girl.
Spicker was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault. Speed was the aggravating circumstance, said Austintown Police Lt. Bryan Kloss. Gains said he is not familiar with the Spicker case, which is set for trial April 2. But he noted that unlike adults, juveniles don't get the benefit of a grand jury.
In Fox's court case, Gains said, the wine he drank the night he ran his Porsche off the road contributed to the felony charge. Gains said that if there had been any drugs or alcohol in Zimbardi's system, "it would be a different story."
He said that he understands Little's grief, and he feels bad for her and her family. He also said that there is no room for emotion or sympathy in the law.
"It is what it is."