Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The defendant was too nervous to speak at sentencing, his attorney said.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN — Timothy Wyland will spend five years in prison for giving drugs to two 16-year-old girls in a Liberty motel room in March 2006 and causing the accidental death of one of them, Cortney L. Rushwin of Girard.
Wyland, dressed in a suit and looking nervous and frail, fidgeted throughout his hearing in the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Monday, answering all of Judge Andrew Logan’s questions, but not speaking to Rushwin’s family when given a chance.
One of his attorneys, Ronald Yarwood, said Wyland, 39, of Youngstown, accepted full responsibility for his actions by pleading guilty to all charges against him, including involuntary manslaughter, but he was too nervous to speak and didn’t want his statements to be misinterpreted.
Kathryn Migliozzi, Rushwin’s mother, did speak when it was her turn, saying she finds it repulsive that she will be “breathing the same air as Timothy Wyland.”
She asked Judge Logan to “help us ensure that no parent will ever again know this pain at the hands of Timothy Wyland.”
“Because of my daughter’s death, I feel as though I, my entire family, as well as those friends who loved her, are forced to serve a sentence of heartache and despair,” she said as she stood before the bench with her husband, Frank Migliozzi and daughter, Timi Danks.
“If I must endure this lifelong sentence, then Timothy Wyland, who I feel is completely responsible for her death, should be made to pay as well,” she said.
Wyland’s trial was scheduled to begin Monday morning, but prosecutors reached a plea agreement instead.
Chuck Morrow, an assistant county prosecutor, said that some parts of the case would have been difficult to prove at trial, such as whether Wyland provided the drugs that killed Rushwin, a Girard High School junior who played clarinet in the high school band.
What happened
Morrow said that Rushwin was found at home March 25, the morning after she spent about six hours with Wyland and the other girl in the Knight’s Inn motel. She was unresponsive and not breathing. She was pronounced dead a short time later.
Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, the county’s forensic pathologist, would have testified that Rushwin had cocaine and heroin in her blood and urine, Morrow said.
Morrow said there was no proof that Wyland killed Rushwin on purpose, but Wyland was reckless in giving the girl drugs.
During a hearing in Girard Municipal Court in July, the other girl in the hotel room testified that Rushwin and Wyland made several trips to the bathroom at the hotel, where she assumed they used drugs. She said Wyland later gave her heroin.
Morrow said the family was in agreement with Wyland’s five-year prison term.
Later, the family declined to comment on the length of Wyland’s sentence and his $7,500 fine.
Mother’s response
Kathryn Migliozzi said she hopes her daughter’s death will educate children of the harm they cause when they do drugs.
“She was a naive 16-year-old. She was like all teenagers that don’t realize what they are doing and don’t realize they are vulnerable,” she said. “She did a bad thing with a bad person. I hope every kid out there realizes what they do to their family when this sort of thing happens.”
Wyland had been free on $350,000 bond since after he was arrested by police. He was convicted Monday of involuntary manslaughter, three counts of corrupting another with drugs, two counts of trafficking in heroin and one count of trafficking in cocaine. He could have received as much as 381⁄2 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
He was led away in handcuffs at the end of the hearing to begin his sentence.
Katherine Migliozzi filed a lawsuit against Wyland last year. The suit seeks $2 million in damages for Rushwin’s death.
runyan@vindy.com