BRYAN, Ohio (WOWO)— A Williams County man has been ordered to serve six and a half years in prison after pleading guilty in two cases, including a high-speed police pursuit that resulted in injuries to an infant.
Zachary Chervenka, 32, appeared Monday in Williams County Common Pleas Court. Judge Rhonda Fisher accepted his guilty pleas in a case involving a Dec. 1, 2024, pursuit in Bryan, as well as a separate stolen-property case according to WTOL.
According to prosecutors, Bryan police were attempting to locate Chervenka on an active warrant when they received information that he was at Walmart. When officers tried to stop him, he drove away with two young children in the vehicle. During a roughly 15-minute pursuit, Chervenka ran one red light, eight stop signs and traveled through multiple intersections at speeds exceeding 100 mph.
During the chase, a nine-month-old child secured in a car seat was ejected from the vehicle. The infant remained outside for about an hour before being found. The child survived and was treated at a hospital. Officers ended the pursuit due to hazardous weather conditions and high speeds. The two children were located at the scene, while Chervenka fled on foot and was arrested the following day inside an unoccupied apartment in Edgerton.
Chervenka pleaded guilty to charges including failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, endangering children, trespass into habitation and aggravated possession of drugs. The court ordered the felony counts of failure to comply and the felony child-endangerment charge to run consecutively, with remaining counts running concurrently. The total sentence in the Williams County case amounts to six years and six months.
In a separate case, Chervenka pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving stolen property. He received 18 months on each count, to be served concurrently with the chase-related sentence.
Overall, Chervenka will serve six and a half years in the Ohio Department of Corrections. That term will be served consecutive to a three-year sentence previously imposed in a Defiance County case.
