OVI charge against Perrysburg mayor dropped

A charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated against Perrysburg Mayor Thomas Mackin was dropped Friday.

The mayor pleaded guilty to a marked lanes violation from the March traffic stop. He will pay court costs associated with the OVI charge and a $60 fine for the marked lanes offense along with court costs associated with that offense.

“I’m just glad the we’re done, it’s completed, and we can all move forward. ... It was very involved,” Mr. Mackin said in an interview after the evidence-suppression hearing in Perrysburg Municipal Court was adjourned.

Visiting Judge Ralph Perk cited “evidentiary concerns” when he accepted the state’s motion to dismiss the OVI charge as part of a plea agreement, with Mr. Mackin pleading guilty to the marked lanes offense.

According to the police report, Mr. Mackin was pulled over at 11:43 p.m. March 2 after an officer noticed an SUV driven by Mr. Mackin making a late and abrupt lane change to get into the left-turn lane of State Rt. 25 to travel west on West Indiana Avenue.

Officer Forrest Braddock wrote in the report that he turned his vehicle around to get behind the SUV and noticed it was stopped in the crosswalk, beyond the white stop bar for the intersection. The officer wrote he then stopped the vehicle near Fort Meigs Road.

Mr. Mackin’s blood-alcohol content was estimated at 0.035 percent from a Breathalyzer test, according to the report. The legal driving limit in Ohio is 0.08 percent. Officer Braddock wrote that he asked Mr. Mackin whether he took any medications. “He stated he has had prior heart surgery, so he is on a lot of medication,” the report said.

“First of all, and most importantly, the mayor was not impaired on the night in question,” Drew Griffith, Mr. Mackin's attorney, said in an interview Friday after the court adjourned. “We have scientific proof of that. We do have some frustration with the amount of time that it took for the case to resolve, but ultimately it came to the right result.”