YOUNGSTOWN - A jury in Mahoning County found a 32-year-old Youngstown man guilty Monday of aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault for an accident in February that killed one of the man's passengers and injured another in the vehicle.
Christopher Kelso of East Midlothian Boulevard faces a maximum of 13 years in prison. He will likely be sentenced next month after a presentence investigation is complete, according to Tribune Chronicle partner WYTV 33 News.
Killed in the Feb. 3, 2010, crash at Wilson Avenue and Prospect Street was Pamela Kennedy, 28, of Boardman. Another passenger in the back seat of the vehicle, Javier Colon, 31, of Youngstown, was injured.
The prosecution told jurors last week that Kelso, Kennedy and Colon had gone to two bars on Feb. 2 and were on their way to a third when the car crashed and ended up on its roof. Kennedy died at the scene.
Kelso was allowed to leave the court after being found guilty Monday. He remains free on bond until sentencing.
Kennedy's stepfather, Ralph Genova, told 33 News, ''This kid is a criminal, and he got convicted by a jury of his peers, and just to let him walk out of the court like it's a misdemeanor, like it's nothing? I mean he has torn this family to pieces, and they just keep letting him walk out, like it's nothing,"
During testimony Wednesday, the prosecutor and defense attorney argued over blood tests taken after the accident.
Assistant prosecutor Becky Doherty told jurors that blood taken at St. Elizabeth Health Center about an hour after the accident showed Kelso's blood-alcohol content at .139, and another sample taken an hour later that was tested by the state crime lab registered .115.
In Ohio, a driver with a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent or greater is consider legally impaired.
The defense argued the first sample taken from Kelso after the accident was not accurate because it was not a whole blood sample, but was blood serum. There were also plans by the defense to explain to jurors that based on Kelso's weight and other factors, that the second sample showed Kelso actually was under the legal limit for drunken driving.