10 years in prison for Keith Urso’s 15th OVI conviction

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Keith Urso

WARREN

Keith Urso of Warren, convicted of drunken driving for the 15th time, will spend 10 years in prison.

“Apparently no prior sanction by any court has received your attention,” Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court said Tuesday. “Mr. Urso, you are a danger to the community at large and the citizens of the country who daily drive on our national highways.”

“Prior sanctions haven’t worked. Rehabilitation hasn’t worked. Short-term incarceration hasn’t worked,” the judge said.

Another Trumbull County common pleas court judge sentenced Urso to one year in prison in 2006 for his last drunken driving offense, prosecutors said.

On Tuesday, Urso stood beside his attorney, Anthony Consoldane without emotion as the verdict was read. He offered no statement, though Consoldane suggested that it was “unfortunate that we got to this point” because “somebody four, five, six DUI’s ago should have been able to do something to stop this.”

Mike Burnett, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said Urso, 50, is “by the far the worst OVI offender we have had in Trumbull County” and is the only person he’s aware of here who has received the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Urso was arrested Jan. 31 in the parking lot of Monty’s Carry Out and Restaurant in Mecca Township after a concerned motorist followed him there while talking to 911 about Urso’s car, which was moving erratically — sometimes stopping in the road — as it headed north on Hoagland Blackstub Road.

Urso’s blood-alcohol level was later measured at 0.286 — more than three times the legal limit. Urso was convicted following a jury trial in common pleas court.