Man wants charges dismissed in fatal accident
A Smithfield man wants charges in the death of a Fairchance woman dismissed because prosecutors have not presented enough evidence to support the charges. On behalf of 22-year-old Christopher Meyokovich, attorney Joseph Ferens Jr. also alleged that an extrapolation that determined his client was legally intoxicated at the time of the accident was not based on fact.
Jessica Rankin, 23, was thrown from Meyokovich’s car during the April 24, 2005, accident on a German Township road. State police have alleged that Meyokovich and his friend, David Keister, put Rankin’s body back into the car and drove away.
Meyokovich called his father a short time later, police allege, and authorities responded.
Both face charges associated with the fatal accident, but Meyokovich has the lion’s share because he was driving the car. He is charged with homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), homicide by vehicle, accidents involving death or personal injury and three counts of DUI, in addition to several traffic citations.
Police believe that Meyokovich’s blood-alcohol level was .107 percent at the time of the crash. A police lab that tested his blood two hours after the accident found it was .062 percent. The legal limit for Pennsylvania drivers is .08 percent.
To perform an extrapolation, Dr. Charles Winek took Meyokovich’s blood-alcohol content after the accident and worked backward to determine what this BAC would have been at the time of the crash.
In doing so, Winek used facts provided by the police that included that Meyokovich had been drinking from 10 p.m. through 2 a.m., and that he had not eaten. The type of alcohol was not specified.
Ferens argued at Meyokovich’s preliminary hearing that those types of facts never were made part of the evidence in the case, and that Winek’s figures based on them were questionable.
A hearing on the matter will be scheduled for a later date.