Feb 15, 2022 2 min read

Former Washington City Councilman Matthew Staniszewski pleaded guilty Friday in Bedford County Court to driving under the influence following his crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last February.

Staniszewski pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of DUI highest rate second offense before President Judge Travis Livengood and will be sentenced March 18 at 9 a.m., although it appears he will avoid jail time.

While the charge typically carries a sentence of 90 days to 23½ months in jail, Staniszewski will be given credit for the 31 days he spent during in-patient rehabilitation last spring, according to his defense attorney, Sean Logue. Logue said the plea deal also would allow Staniszewski to serve five months of house arrest at his Washington residence.

“I’m really proud of Matt and his resiliency throughout this whole deal,” Logue said. “He knows he screwed up and he’s done everything he could to put himself in the position that he’s in today.”

State police arrested Staniszewski, 44, after he crashed his SUV into a concrete median in the turnpike’s eastbound lanes near Bedford on Feb. 16, 2021. Police said his vehicle was partially blocking the highway’s left lane, although no one was injured in the single-vehicle crash. Staniszewski had a blood-alcohol level of .267% at the time of the crash, according to court documents.

Staniszewski was serving six months’ probation following another DUI conviction in Washington in August 2019, and was just eight days away from completing it when the turnpike crash happened. The day after the crash, Washington County probation officers took him into custody at a Washington home for violating terms of his sentence for the previous DUI conviction, and he was held in the Washington County jail for nearly two months until President Judge John DiSalle resentenced him to 3 to 6 months of incarceration. DiSalle allowed Staniszewski to be released to undergo the 30-day inpatient treatment program at a Monroeville facility.

Staniszewski, who has served two separate stints on Washington City Council, did not run for reelection last November and left the seat when his term expired at the beginning of January.