Don’t let man facing 15th DUI out of jail, prosecutor urges

Urso killed someone while driving drunk in 1982, the prosecutor said.

Photo

Keith Urso

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

WARREN — Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins has asked that Keith J. Urso be kept in Trumbull County Jail without bail while the courts determine whether Urso is guilty of DUI for the 15th time.

Urso, 49, of Monroe Street and Vermont Street, was indicted Wednesday by a Trumbull County grand jury on two counts of driving under the influence with a prior felony conviction and repeat DUI offender.

Each charge carries a penalty of two to 10 years in prison.

Urso will be arraigned at 2:30 p.m. today by Judge Andrew Logan in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

The charges stem from an arrest by a Trumbull County sheriff’s deputy around 1 p.m. Jan. 31 in Mecca Township. Urso was charged with DUI and driving under suspension and found to have a blood-alcohol level of 0.286 — more than three times the legal limit of 0.08, Watkins said. He had no license and was driving a girlfriend’s car, according to the sheriff’s department.

“The evidence will show that [Urso’s] drunken stupor was so profound, he could not stand and walk. Miraculously, no one was killed or injured by his driving,” Watkins wrote in a motion he filed with the common pleas court Wednesday.

Watkins told the court that Urso killed someone in 1982 while driving drunk and was sentenced to one year in prison in 2006 for another DUI.

“Since 1982 this defendant has amassed 14 separate [DUI] convictions and additional violations related to failure to appear, leaving the scene of an accident, domestic violence and probation violations,” Watkins wrote in the filing.

He added that Ohio law allows a person to be kept in jail instead of being released on bond if the person is charged with a felony “where the proof is evident or the presumption great and where the person poses a substantial risk of serious physical harm to any person or the community.”

Urso pleaded innocent to the charges in Central District Court Feb. 1 and was released from jail later that day after posting $20,000 bond.

He was arrested again Wednesday following the indictment.

In the Jan. 31 incident, a deputy responded to Monty’s Carry Out and Restaurant at Bazetta Road and state Route 88 after a witness said she saw Urso driving intoxicated north on Bazetta Road and that he had pulled into Monty’s to sleep.

When the deputy arrived, he smelled alcohol coming from Urso, found a half-empty beer can in the car, and Urso fell forward when he tried to get out of his car, the deputy’s report said.

runyan@vindy.com