Ex-student pleads guilty to 8 charges

Charges result of incident which killed high-schooler

On June 27 Jonathan Drake, a former Oberlin College student, hit and killed 16-year-old Creighton Green, an Oberlin High School student while driving by the Oberlin Golf Club on Pyle South Amherst Road. Drake changed his pleas to guilty March 28 in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on eight charges related to the accident.

Green had just completed his sophomore year at Oberlin High School, and Drake had completed two years at the College.

The June 28 issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Green was mowing grass near the side of the road when Drake, then 19, hit him in a car at 7:50 a.m. Green died of head and neck injuries at the scene.

Drake was arrested on charges of aggravated vehicular homicide, resisting arrest, obstructing official business, driving while under the influence and failure to control. His arraignment was June 28 at the Oberlin Municipal Court.

In January, the Greens filed a civil suit against Drake and other defendants, which is pending, according to the Plain Dealer.

The Plain Dealer also reported that the plea came during a hearing to suppress blood and urine test results, as well as the statement of a man who said he gave Drake LSD and watched him take it.

"He realized what he did was wrong," Drake's lawyer, Larry W. Zukerman, told the Plain Dealer. "He didn't want to put the Greens through a trial; he didn't want to put his family through a trial."

The Plain Dealer reported on March 29 the eight counts of Drakes' October grand jury indictment, which included involuntary manslaughter and aggravated vehicular homicide, both aggravated third-degree felonies; drug abuse, a fourth-degree felony; driving while under the influence, a first-degree misdemeanor; and four minor misdemeanors.

Drake will permanently lose his driver's license and faces between two and 10 years in prison. Zukerman said the next step is deciding upon Drake's sentence, but a date for that decision has not yet been set.