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Man arrested on sixth OVI charge
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A city man is in the Mahoning County jail on $20,000 bond after he was arraigned Monday in municipal court on his sixth charge of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Maurice White, 47, of Youngstown was arrested about 1:40 a.m. Friday by a trooper from the Canfield barracks of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, reports said.
A state trooper wrote in a report that he saw White’s car on state Route 170 Friday morning and he was weaving in the roadway, and when he stopped at a red light he was too far into the intersection. When the trooper went up to the car, he wrote, White smelled heavily of alcohol and failed a field-sobriety test.
He was taken to the barracks in Canfield where he performed a breath test and measured a blood-alcohol content of 0.176 percent, reports said.
In Ohio, the legal limit for driving drunk is 0.08 percent.
Assistant City Prosecutor Kathy Thompson said that White was charged five times for OVI within the last 20 years, which elevates his sixth charge to a felony.
Thompson asked Visiting Judge Dino Prassinos for a bond of $20,000, saying a high bond was necessary because White is a danger to the community because of his multiple DUI convictions.
Court records show a conviction for DUI in 2008, when White also was convicted under a special circumstance because his blood-alcohol content was over 0.170, and in 2011, both in Mahoning County Area Court in Boardman.
Municipal Court records show convictions in 2001, and for a blood-alcohol content of 0.170 or greater in 2009. There also was a DUI charge in 1999 that was amended to reckless operation and of which White was found guilty.
White told Judge Prassinos he couldn’t afford a $20,000 bail, but when Judge Prassinos said he was considering lowering it to $15,000, Thompson asked the judge to also place White on electronic house arrest, so that he would not be able to drive.
Judge Prassinos then made the bond $20,000.