A Tinley Park, Ill., man who the Indiana State Police said was driving drunk when he rear ended a Platteville, Wis., man’s vehicle on I-94 in October 2008, in a crash which killed the Platteville man, has been sentenced to four years in the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC), the Porter County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said.

Michael Michalski, 54, was sentenced on Tuesday to the maximum prison term under a plea agreement reached in August with the Porter County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in August, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Bennett told the Chesterton Tribune today.

Under the agreement, Michalski pleaded guilty to operating while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content higher than .08 percent and causing death, a Class C felony punishable by a term of two to eight years. Three other lesser-and-included felony counts and four misdemeanor counts were dismissed and the DOC term was capped at four years with a minimum of two years.

The presumptive sentence for a Class C felony is typically four years, when there are aggravating factors or a shaving of years when there are mitigating ones. Bennett did note that Michalski has a 1983 OWI conviction and a 1988 conviction for reckless driving, pleaded down from OWI, but that Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary Harper concluded that those two convictions are “too remote” to be considered aggravating factors.

Bennett also noted that Michalski pleaded guilty to the severest of the seven charges against him and that in such a case he may not also be prosecuted on the lesser-and-included charges.

Michalski will be eligible for release on serving two years, or half of his sentence. Harper did not impose a term of probation on Michalski following his release from DOC, Bennett said.

According to police, at 12:50 a.m. Oct. 11, 2008, traffic had slowed for an earlier crash in the eastbound lanes of I-94 at the 28.5 mile marker, just east of the scales, when Michalski, driving a 2003 Ford Expedition, rear ended Benjamin Larson, 30, of Platteville. The impact forced Larson’s 2000 Dodge Intrepid into the back of a 2005 Volvo semi-tractor trailer, police said.

Larson was pronounced dead at the scene.

Michalski subsequently advised police that he had left a golf outing in Olympia Fields, Ill., and at the time of the crash was on his way to Michigan, Trooper Glen Fifield stated in his probable cause affidavit. Fifield further stated that Michalski showed signs of intoxication, that he passed two but failed several other field sobriety tests, and that he then refused to submit to a portable breath test. A warrant was obtained for a blood draw and two samples taken.

Neither Michalski nor the driver of the semi was injured in the crash, police said.

Posted 12/18/2009