McDonald man waives homicide by motor vehicle case
A preliminary hearing for a McDonald man was canceled Wednesday after he waived his homicide by vehicle case to Washington County Court.
District Judge Mark Wilson also denied a bond reduction request for Daniel Harold Fleet Jr., 25, who is accused of driving under the influence of alcohol when he drove the wrong way on Route 22 in Robinson Township, causing a June 7 crash that killed a Moon Township man.
George Raymond Jucha Jr., 50, died at the scene of the head-on crash about 1 a.m.
Wilson also denied a request by Fleet’s attorney, David J. Shrager of Pittsburgh, to enter Fleet into alcohol rehabilitation.
Washington County First Assistant District Attorney Chad Schneider said Shrager’s requests would need to be presented in a motion to a Washington County judge.
“I wanted to get my client into inpatient rehabilitation,” Shrager said.
Fleet, who has been in Washington County jail on $100,000 bond, arrived in court wearing a neck brace.
He is charged by state police with homicide by motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, aggravated assault while DUI, homicide by motor vehicle, DUI and reckless endangerment.
Fleet also is scheduled to be formally arraigned July 17 in Allegheny County Court in a separate DUI case involving his May 1 arrest by police in Robinson Township.
He is charged with having a blood-alcohol content higher than 0.16 percent in that case, court records show.
Schneider said prosecutors are aware of the Allegheny case against Fleet and said it likely contributed to his high bond on the charges stemming from the Washington County fatal crash.
He said it is not unusual for Fleet to have been free on bond at the time of the Robinson crash, as the case in Allegheny was his first alleged DUI offense.