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Austintown man charged with child endangering
By JUSTIN DENNIS
YOUNGSTOWN
An Austintown man indicted last month after his child overdosed on an opioid is now in the Mahoning County jail.
U.S. Marshals on Friday arrested Michael A. Clark, 37, of Tulane Avenue, according to jail records. He faces a felony count of child endangering.
In November, Clark’s son – 2 years old at the time – overdosed after reportedly ingesting suboxone, an opioid medication, from a pill Clark reportedly brought into the home, according to an Austintown Police Department report.
Clark told police he found the then-unknown orange tablet on the passenger side of his work truck. He said the truck had been used by many of his employees – some of whom he said may be recovering drug addicts – but the truck had remained in his driveway, unused, for a month before he found the pill.
Clark noted he also found drug-abuse instruments such as a syringe and spoon inside the truck more than a week before the boy’s overdose.
Clark told police he brought the pill into his Tulane Avenue home to identify it, and his son may have ingested some of it after he left it unattended in a bathroom. Soon after, the boy appeared “extremely lethargic,” prompting his parents to take him to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital. They did not bring the pill with them for identification, the report states.
Medical professionals administered two doses of naloxone, an opioid-reversal drug, when the boy began “going in and out of consciousness,” the report states. He later vomited what appeared to be “chewed up cigarettes,” and hospital staff cleaned it before officers could investigate it.
Hospital staff told police Clark and his wife attempted to stop further medical treatment for the boy. Officers ultimately took custody of the boy by child welfare statutes, and he was transported to Akron Children’s Hospital in Akron.
Clark is set for arraignment Tuesday morning in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Court records show Clark did not appear at his initial arraignment on the child-endangerment charge Tuesday, causing the court to issue a bench warrant for his arrest.