Urso awaits trial in jail on 15th DUI

The law allows judges to deny bond in situations such as this, the Trumbull prosecutor said.

STAFF report

WARREN — Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court said Keith Urso will remain in the county jail while awaiting trial on his 15th drunken-driving charge.

Urso, 49, of Warren, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the charge. He returns to court Tuesday morning for his first pre-trial hearing.

County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said he believes Judge Logan’s decision Friday is the first in Ohio in which a judge used a law enacted Jan. 1, 1998, to deny bond to a repeat drunken-driving offender.

Watkins urged the judge to take the unusual step in two court filings over the past week.

In the most recent one, Watkins said voters ordered a change in the Ohio Constitution on Nov. 4, 1997 under the title Issue 1.

The change allowed judges to deny bond in cases where a felony offender poses a “substantial risk of serious physical danger to others” and “the proof is evident or presumption great that the person committed the ... offense,” Watkins said.

Watkins said Urso poses a great risk to the community because he has been convicted of drunken driving 14 previous times dating back to 1979, including once in 1982 when he ran into a hay wagon full of people in Bristol Township, killing 25-year-old Nadine Foster of Elm Road in Warren.

Foster died of a fractured skull and cerebral contusions Oct. 2, 1982, when Urso was 22.

She was thrown from the vehicle, but the five others, including the driver of the wagon, suffered minor injuries in the 11 p.m. accident. Foster was part of a group of softball players on an outing, according to Vindicator archives.

Urso was convicted of vehicular homicide and sentenced to jail, Watkins said. Urso also has repeatedly driven vehicles belonging to others without a valid driver’s license, Watkins added.

Urso was arrested the most recent time Jan. 31 outside Monty’s Carry Out and Restaurant at state Route 88 and Bazetta Road after a concerned motorist followed him there and called 911 because he reportedly was driving erratically.

A test later indicated his blood-alcohol level was 0.286, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08.

Urso also was sentenced to one year in jail in 2006 for drunken driving on state Route 88 in May of that same year, Watkins said.