Driver who injured state trooper gets prison as another who killed passenger gets probation

Jordan Laird, Columbus Dispatch
Updated ·2 min read
4
Ohio Highway Patrol Trooper Adrian Wilson's cruiser following a Feb. 13 crash on Interstate 71 northbound near U.S. 62 in the Grove City area of southwestern Franklin County. The patrol says Wilson's cruiser had its emergency lights on when it was struck from behind by a Toyota SUV and sent careening into Wilson, who was on foot outside his cruiser. Wilson was critically injured in the crash.

A Georgia woman who critically injured an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper in a crash on Interstate 71 is sentenced to prison while another woman who killed her passenger in an Interstate 270 crash received probation in unrelated Franklin County Common Pleas Court cases.

Alea Weil, 30, of Atlanta, plowed into Trooper Adrian E. Wilson's parked cruiser on I-71 on Feb. 13 in southwestern Franklin County, shoving the vehicle into Wilson, who was on foot. The cruiser’s overhead emergency lights were flashing at the time, the Highway Patrol has said.

Wilson, 44, was hospitalized with a broken leg and a severe head injury after the crash, according to court records. Weil was also treated for serious injuries.

Weil pleaded guilty last month in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to aggravated vehicular assault and possession of a fentanyl-related compound. Franklin County prosecutors dropped other charges, including misdemeanor counts for operating a motor vehicle while impaired.

Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Adrian E. Wilson
Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Adrian E. Wilson

In front of dozens of troopers sitting in the courtroom Monday, Common Pleas Judge Kim Brown sentenced Weil to five years in prison. Brown could have given Weil up to 6 ½ years in prison. Brown also suspended Weil’s driver license for six years, according to the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office.

Wilson, a trooper for 15 years, had stopped on the side of northbound I-71 around milepost 97, near U.S. 62, to pick up some debris in the roadway that might have posed a hazard to other motorists.

The patrol reported that Weil, who was driving northbound, slammed her Toyota Rav4 into the back of Wilson's parked cruiser, sending the cruiser forward into him. Both vehicles were damaged extensively.

Woman gets community control for crash that killed passenger

Italia Jefferson, 22, of Michigan, will spend five years on community control, often called probation, for driving off Interstate 270 and hitting two trees in 2021, leading to the death of one of her passengers, 21-year-old Xitalic Rivera of Chino, California.

The crash happened on westbound Interstate 270 in the Easton area.

Jefferson pleaded guilty in April to aggravated vehicular homicide in connection with the crash on the evening of April 23, 2021.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Bill Sperlazza, who sentenced Jefferson on July 20, could have given her up to five years in prison.

Sperlazza suspended Jefferson’s driver license for five years and ordered her to pay a little more than $4,200 in restitution to Rivera's family to cover funeral costs.

Jefferson’s defense attorney, Mark Hunt, told The Dispatch that Jefferson was not under the influence of drugs or alchol that night, but was driving at an excessive speed of at least 85 miles per hour.

Hunt said it is one of the most tragic cases he’s ever handled and the two women were friends.

jlaird@dispatch.com

@LairdWrites

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Driver who hit trooper gets prison while driver in fatal on probation