January trial set for man in fatal crash
A January trial has been scheduled for a man who withdrew his no- contest plea to a 15-year felony after the judge reneged on a deal to cap his sentence at one year in jail.
A tentative trial date of Jan. 15, with an alternative date of Feb. 10, was set Tuesday for Aaron Seagraves, 30, of Troy, in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens.
Seagraves in October 2019 pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol causing death for the March 2017 crash in Sterling Heights that killed Mathew Kesto, 25, of Warren.
But he withdrew it at his sentencing after Judge James Biernat Jr. said that after hearing Kesto’s familymembers speak he could not stick to his agreement for a one-year jail term. The sentencing guidelines, which are mostly advisory, show a term between 3-½ to seven years in prison.
Kesto’s four sisters gave emotional statements, accompanied by sobs and wailing from among more than a dozen other loved ones in the courtroom.
Biernat said Tuesday he wants the trial to go as soon as possible.
“This case is basically my oldest criminal case,” he said. “It should have been tried a year ago, more than that.”
But the trial date is contingent on the ability of the county to meet standards set by the state Supreme Court to allow trials. The county must have sevenday average of less than 70 positive cases per one million people, a threshold the county has not met.
The trial date is also complicated by another trial that defense attorney Nicole Castka is handling in the same courthouse. Jonathan Jones is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 4 in front of circuit Judge Kathryn Viviano for first-degree murder for the death of his live-in girlfriend’s daughter. If that trial starts as planned, it likely will not be completed in time for Seagrave’s trial date less than two weeks later. Hence, Biernat set an alternative date.
Kesto was a passenger in a Chrysler Pacifica driven by a then 24-year-oldman that collided head- on with a Ford F-150 driven by Seagraves at 12:45 a.m. March 14, 2017, on Ryan Road north of Metropolitan Parkway in Sterling Heights.
Seagraves’ blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit of 0.08%.
Macomb prosecutors say Seagraves swerved into the lane of the Pacifica. But the defense says there is evidence Kesto may have grabbed at the steering wheel to cause the Pacifica to swerve into the oncoming lane, and that Kesto and the driver both had a controlled substance in their systems.