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Yurich convicted on two counts, faces up to year in jail
By Justin Wier
YOUNGSTOWN
Video
Sentencing is set for 2 p.m. Tuesday for Dr. Joseph Yurich, found guilty of vehicular homicide and failure to stop after an accident in the death of Neal Cuppett in a May 9, 2015, Berlin Reservoir boat crash.
Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday found Dr. Yurich not guilty on the more serious indicted charge of aggravated vehicular homicide.
The judge, however, determined that vehicular homicide due to negligence was a lesser included charge.
“The defendant’s negligence was in fact the proximate cause of the death of Neal Cuppett,” 58, of Akron, Judge Durkin ruled from the bench.
That charge, a first-degree misdemeanor, requires a minimum sentence of 15 days and up to six months in jail.
Dr. Yurich was also found guilty of failure to stop after an accident, which also carries a sentence of up to six months and must be served consecutively to any other sentences.
The surgeon will also have to report his convictions to the state’s medical board, which may take disciplinary action.
Dr. Yurich was found not guilty of aggravated vehicular assault and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
Dr. Yurich was indicted under the specific section of the aggravated vehicular homicide and assault statutes that specify the defendant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash.
“Every witness — and most importantly, Lt. [Gregory] Johnson [of the Portage County Sheriff’s Department] — testified that they saw no obvious signs of impairment,” Judge Durkin said.
None of the witnesses reported seeing Dr. Yurich staggering or slurring his speech.
Last year, Judge Durkin excluded blood and alcohol samples taken from Dr. Yurich on the night of the crash from evidence because they were not properly refrigerated in accordance with Ohio law.
Those samples recorded a blood-alcohol level of .152, nearly twice the legal limit of .08, a toxicologist reported at the time.
Johnson said he was unaware of the statute requiring that blood and urine samples be refrigerated unless they are being tested or in transit.
The Portage County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a request for comment.
A toxicologist also said lack of refrigeration for up to four weeks would not significantly affect the outcome, but Judge Durkin said it’s up to the state legislature to change its law.
Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said his office did not consider amending the indictment to include the section of the aggravated vehicular homicide statute that specifies the defendant was reckless after the blood-alcohol samples were excluded.
“We actually felt that based on the evidence, we could still prove it,” Gains said. “Obviously, the judge felt differently.”
Prosecutors showed surveillance video of Dr. Yurich consuming two beers and two shots one to two hours before the accident.
Assistant prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa asked Judge Durkin to consider the recklessness specification as a lesser included charge of aggravated vehicular homicide while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but Judge Durkin said previous case law suggested it does not qualify.
On Tuesday, Dr. Yurich testified that he heard an “explosion” when the boats collided and that caused him to relive a battlefield experience when he was a surgeon in the Iraq war.
“The defendant did not tell his wife that he heard an explosion,” Judge Durkin said. “She testified that he hit something. He called his friend Andrew Crogan and told him that he hit something and it’s not good.”
The judge also noted that Dr. Yurich told Lt. Johnson that he hit a rock, which is different from what his wife testified he had told her earlier on the morning of May 9, 2015.
The judge also dismissed an argument put forward by Dr. Yurich’s attorneys that Dr. Yurich worried his boat was taking on water and felt it necessary to speed home. “If one believes the defendant did not know that anything happened until he was almost back at the dock, then obviously he could not have had any concern about the condition of his boat until that moment,” Judge Durkin said.
The judge noted that he would always prefer a unanimous verdict reached by 12 jurors to a decision he makes himself, so he takes the matter seriously.
“If justice was accomplished here today, it would require someone turning back the hands of time,” Judge Durkin said. “Obviously, that’s not something we can do.”
A civil suit filed against Dr. Yurich by Cuppett’s widow was settled out of court in February.
Bruce Lindamood of Green, who was on the fishing boat with Cuppett, filed his own suit in May. That case is pending.