Apr. 15—LIMA — A Lima man will spend 12 months in prison for reportedly injuring his girlfriend in a drunken car crash last summer.
Leroy M. Harris Jr., 44, appeared for a sentencing hearing in Allen County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday, weeks after the Lima man pleaded guilty to one count of vehicular assault, a fourth-degree felony, and one count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a first-degree misdemeanor, for his role in a roll-over crash on Interstate 75 last June.
Harris suffered minor injuries, while his girlfriend fractured her back and collarbone.
“Either one of you could have been killed,” Judge Terri Kohlrieser told Harris, who pleaded for probation in lieu of prison so he could finish alcohol-abuse treatment and raise his five-year-old daughter.
“Then who would that five-year-old girl be left to if you two had died that night?”
Harris faced a maximum sentence of two years in prison and $6,500 in fines, though only one of the charges carried a mandatory 10-day jail term with no presumption of prison for either charge.
The state did not make a sentencing recommendation, but assistant Prosecutor Colleen Limerick presented photos of the crash, audio of the 9-1-1 call and Harris’s lengthy criminal history.
Limerick said Harris was on probation at the time of the crash and initially denied being the driver when asked by medics in the back of the ambulance.
His criminal history spans several decades including juvenile robbery convictions, repeat parole violations, two OVIs, 11 adult felony convictions, more than 20 misdemeanors and failed treatment at the WORTH Center, Limerick said.
Assistant Public Defender Megan McLean asked the court to consider probation, citing Harris’s recent employment and entry into treatment for alcohol misuse through Coleman Health Services.
McLean suggested the crash is partially the fault of Harris’s girlfriend, who allegedly took the wheel when she thought she saw a deer, based on her assessment of a victim statement to the defense team and a portion of a 9-1-1 call initiated by Harris’s smartwatch in which Harris tells his girlfriend, “You did this! You took the wheel!”
The woman sat in the courtroom behind Harris but declined to speak when asked if she wanted to provide a victim-impact statement, and could be seen crying at the conclusion of the hearing.
Harris told the court he has been sober for four months and was taking “baby steps” to improve his life after decades of “running the streets,” but his extensive criminal history — dating back to when Harris was a 10-year-old boy in foster care — sealed his fate.
Kohlrieser sentenced Harris to 12 months in prison, 10 days in jail, two years of parole, a $1,000 fine and a five-year license suspension, with 74 days credit for time served in the Allen County Jail awaiting trial.
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