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Plea deal reached in fatal crash
YOUNGSTOWN — The jury trial of Michael J. Behanna on an aggravated vehicular homicide charge in the death of Wendy Manis ended abruptly Tuesday afternoon in a plea agreement that will keep Behanna locked up for about three more years.
Behanna’s lawyer, John F. Shultz, said the prosecution’s assertion that Behanna was drunk at the time of the crash was weakened by testimony concerning police mishandling of blood evidence supporting that assertion.
Shultz said that testimony put him in a favorable position to negotiate a plea agreement, in which the prosecution recommended a four-year prison term on a reduced level of aggravated vehicular homicide charge.
In the plea agreement, Behanna also pleaded guilty to breaking and entering, receiving stolen property and evidence tampering charges from an unrelated multicount automobile theft and conspiracy indictment, with the prosecution recommending a total of 41‚Ñ2 years in prison for those offenses. The four years for aggravated vehicular homicide will be served concurrently with the 41‚Ñ2 years in the other case.
The defense waived a pre-sentence investigation, and Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentences Tuesday as recommended by the prosecution. Behanna will get credit for 16 months he has been jailed.
Earlier plea negotiations had collapsed after members of Manis’ family expressed dissatisfaction with the six-year prison term then proposed by the prosecution, Shultz said.
In opening statements in the trial, Shultz referred to the traffic crash that killed Manis as accidental. But Dionne M. Almasy, assistant county prosecutor, said the actions of Behanna, who she said was the other driver, were criminal.
Behanna, 29, of North Brockway Avenue, was charged in the Oct. 6, 2006, crash on North Hazelwood Avenue near Russell Avenue, in which Manis, 25, of Austintown, suffered fatal injuries.
Police said the southbound car Behanna was driving struck the car Manis was driving as she backed out of her boyfriend’s driveway at 4:04 a.m. Jurors visited the crash scene Tuesday morning before hearing opening statements from the lawyers.
“The defendant’s actions were not accidental; they were criminal,” Almasy told the jurors. Behanna intentionally decided to drive after drinking and while his driver’s license was under suspension, she said.
As Manis backed into the street, the car Behanna was driving crashed into the driver’s side of her car and pushed it into a tree 100 feet away, trapping Manis in her car, where it took 20 minutes to extricate her, Almasy said.
Police reported Behanna was agitated and smelled strongly of alcohol as he walked near the crash scene, Almasy said. Without mentioning a specific number, Almasy said Behanna’s blood alcohol level was “well above the legal limit” for driving.
“What occurred was literally an unavoidable accident,” when Manis backed out of a driveway that was only one car-length long and into the street, Shultz said.
Due to the steep incline to be climbed, “it would be impossible for any vehicle to speed down that roadway” and impossible to see a motorist exiting the driveway onto the street, he added.
The prosecution’s burden was to prove Behanna was driving the car and that he recklessly caused the fatal accident, Shultz said.
No bystanders saw the collision or saw Behanna in a vehicle, and, when police arrived, they never saw Behanna in any vehicle, Shultz said. Instead, police found two men outside of the vehicles, he noted.
Police reports describe Behanna as the driver and the other man as his passenger, and said the other man also smelled of alcohol.