Bryan Man Sentenced After High-Speed Chase That Injured Infant

(BRYAN) - A Williams County man is headed to prison for six and a half years after pleading guilty in two criminal cases -- including a violent, high-speed police chase that left an infant injured. WTOL-TV reports 32-year-old Zachary Chervenka appeared Monday in Williams County Common Pleas Court, where Judge Rhonda Fisher accepted his guilty pleas. Prosecutors say Bryan police were trying to find Chervenka on an active warrant last December when they learned he was at Walmart. When officers attempted a stop, he took off with two young children in the vehicle. During the 15-minute pursuit, Chervenka blew through one red light, eight stop signs, and tore through intersections at speeds topping 100 miles an hour. At one point, a nine-month-old child--secured in a car seat--was ejected from the vehicle and left outside for about an hour before being found. The infant survived and was treated at a hospital. Officers later ended the chase because of dangerous weather and high speeds. The children were located soon after, while Chervenka fled on foot. He was arrested the next day inside an unoccupied apartment in Edgerton. Chervenka pleaded guilty to failure to comply with police, child endangerment, trespass into habitation, and aggravated possession of drugs. The felony chase and child-endangerment charges will run consecutively for a total of six years and six months. In a separate case, he also pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving stolen property -- those sentences will run concurrently with the chase-related term. In all, Chervenka will serve six and a half years in the Ohio Department of Corrections, on top of a three-year sentence from a prior Defiance County case.