43
Pavlik OVI charge dismissed
Canfield
A charge of operating a vehicle while impaired against professional boxer Kelly R. Pavlik was dismissed in a Friday plea deal due to a lack of evidence, Pavlik’s lawyer said in court.
The former middleweight champion then pleaded guilty to two minor misdemeanors: failure to control a vehicle and failure to report an accident. Judge Scott D. Hunter fined him $150 on each count and gave him 30 days to pay.
The failure-to-report charge was a lesser charge that replaced an original charge of leaving the scene of an accident.
Pavlik was arrested Dec. 21 at his Sugarbush Drive home after authorities said he and a friend wrecked two all-terrain vehicles on a neighboring property, destroying a lamppost and causing other damage.
Reports say Pavlik smelled of alcohol and was belligerent to sheriff’s deputies investigating the accident.
Pavlik’s lawyer, Damian A. Billak, said in court that there was no field sobriety or Breathalyzer evidence to support the OVI charge.
“There was very little to go on for the state of Ohio,” by way of evidence to support the OVI charge, Billak said.
“The property damage to Mr. Pavlik’s neighbor was taken care of,” by insurance, he said, adding that the damage totaled $2,292.
“The property is ... in better condition, I believe, than it was” before the accident, he added.
“I believe that this is a just result. Obviously, Mr. Pavlik’s been in no trouble since then,” Billak told the judge.
After court, Billak said the plea agreement was a reasonable resolution to the case “because Kelly accepted responsibility for his actions in this, and there are evidentiary and procedural issues with the [OVI] charge that was dismissed that would be very difficult for the state to have overcome, and they realized that.”
Maj. Lenny Sliwinski of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office said the case was complicated by the fact that Pavlik was reportedly drinking alcohol in his house for 45 minutes after the accident before sheriff’s deputies could determine that he was the driver of an ATV involved in the accident.
Pavlik also refused to take the field sobriety or Breathalyzer tests, but neither a field sobriety test nor a Breathalyzerwould have given an accurate measure of his alcohol level at the time of the accident if he drank for 45 minutes after the crash, Sliwinski observed.
Nicholas E. Modarelli, the assistant county prosecutor in Canfield Court, did not appear in the courtroom during Pavlik’s brief plea and sentencing hearing, and Modarelli declined to comment after court on his rationale for making the plea deal.
Pavlik left court without making any comment.
When they arrived at the scene after the accident, deputies were met by Pavlik’s friend, Daniel Ferreri, who initially said he (Ferreri) had run into the lamppost.
After extensive conversation, Ferreri then told deputies Pavlik drove the ATV into the post, and deputies arrested Ferreri on a charge of obstructing official business.
Ferreri, 33, of Omar Street, S truthers, is scheduled for a plea hearing in Canfield Court at 5:30 p.m. May 9.
The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles imposed an automatic suspension of Pavlik’s driver’s license because of his refusal to take the Breathalyzer test, but, on Dec. 30, Judge Hunter indefinitely stayed that suspension “for good cause shown,” but without further explanation, court records show.