Driver who killed bicyclist pleads guilty
A driver who struck and killed a prominent lawyer who was riding a bicycle in western Franklin County pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated vehicular homicide.
Vincent Depalma, 33, of Dublin, could be sent to prison for as many as five years when he is sentenced at a later date by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Frye.
Kurtis Tunnell, 58, a Hilliard resident who had served as top lawyer in the administration of the late Gov. George V. Voinovich, died on Aug. 31, 2019, after he was struck from behind by Depalma’s vehicle on Scioto and Darby Creek Road in Brown Township, near Hilliard.
Tunnell was taking a pre-dawn bicycle ride when the crash occurred at about 5 a.m. Depalma remained at the scene and a witness called 911. Tunnell was pronounced dead a little more than five hours later at Ohiohealth Riverside Methodist Hospital.
The aggravated vehicular homicide conviction was based on Depalma causing the death by driving distracted and with a designer opiate in his system.
In addition to a potential prison sentence, the conviction carries a mandatory driver’s license suspension of anywhere between three years and a lifetime.
A former managing partner at the Bricker & Eckler law firm in Columbus, Tunnell was chosen as chief legal counsel to Voinovich at age 31, and also served as Ohio counsel to President George W. Bush during and after the 2004 presidential campaign.
jfutty@dispatch.com