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In Athens, Ohio a County Prosecutor is making a big dent with those who break the law and drive drunk.
If you've driven east on U.S. Rt. 33 from Nelsonville toward Athens during the last few months, you may have noticed a rather odd billboard.
Featuring a photo of a dilapidated pickup truck and the face of Athens County Prosecutor C. David Warren, the sign bears the intriguing slogan, "You drink... you drive... we crush."
According to Warren, the message he wants to send with the billboard is just that simple: If you get busted for felony drunk-driving in Athens County, the vehicle you were caught driving may end up as a small block of scrap.
Over the last couple of years, Warren said, "we had noticed an increase in felony DUI cases." Typically, a drunk-driving charge becomes a felony when it is the person's fourth offense, he said, or if it involves an injury or fatality.
Warren also noted that the county has seen an average of about two DUI-related fatalities a year since 2001.
"At least every six or seven months over the last six years, we have had one family in Athens County who had to deal with a relative or a loved one killed by a drunken driver," he said.
When someone is convicted of a felony DUI charge, Ohio law calls for criminal forfeiture of the vehicle involved, except in certain cases where the driver was not the owner, or a bank still has a lien on the vehicle.
Once the county seizes a vehicle, however, it has to either store it or auction it off. Warren noted that state law doesn't allow the county to simply give a car to charity.
Given that many vehicles seized from repeat DUI offenders are old and high-mileage, he said, selling them doesn't make much money for the county. He cited a case where the State Highway Patrol seized a vehicle on behalf of the county a couple of years ago.
"We decided that we were going to sell it, after paying $1,200 worth of storage fees," Warren recalled. "We sold it for $300. And guess who we sold it to? The drunk driver."
That case helped Warren decide that he'd rather crush the seized cars than try to resell them. He said he believes the prospect of seeing their vehicles scrapped beyond repair may help serve as a disincentive to repeat drunk drivers.
"Some people don't like to see their vehicles destroyed," he said.
Since launching the program last year, the county has crushed three vehicles, he said. The program is paid for out of his office's Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which is funded by such things as mandatory fines, and therefore uses no tax dollars.
The prosecutor noted that if the county were to seize a better-quality vehicle, he still has the option of auctioning it off or giving it to law enforcement for their use.
Warren also took the opportunity to squelch a rumor that the truck on the billboard was seized from the boyfriend of a woman his office helped send to prison, and whose mother, a former employee of Warren's, once accused him of sexual harassment.
"It's not his," he said.
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| (Source: Jim Phillips-Athens NEWS Senior Writer) |
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