Man gets four years in prison for drunken driving crash

A 55-year-old Town of Fredonia man who was drunk when he crashed his vehicle last year,  seriously injuring his passenger, was sentenced last week in Ozaukee County Circuit Court to four years in prison for his fifth operating while intoxicated offense.

Michael J. Sullivan, whose driver’s license was revoked at the time of the crash because of his prior drunken driving convictions, was also sentenced by Judge Adam Gerol during an April 21 hearing to five years of extended supervision following his incarceration.

In addition, Sullivan was convicted of second-degree recklessly endangering safety, also a felony. Gerol withheld a prison sentence and placed him on probation for five years consecutive to the drunken driving sentence.

Sullivan pleaded guilty to both crimes during a Feb. 2 hearing.

A felony count of bail jumping and misdemeanor charges of driving after his license was revoked and failing to install or tampering with an ignition interlock device were dismissed as part of a plea agreement but read into the record, which means Gerol could consider the facts surrounding those charges when sentencing Sullivan.

According to a criminal complaint, at 9:14 p.m. June 22, Ozaukee County sheriff’s deputy Johnathan Chang responded to a severe crash detection alert, perhaps from a cell phone, and found a severely damaged vehicle off the roadway on Highway H in the Town of Fredonia.

Chang noticed the vehicle was still warm, meaning it was recently operated, and found Sullivan in the drivers seat making small movements.

A passenger was face-down on the dashboard. Neither that person nor Sullivan had been wearing seat belts and both suffered significant cuts to their heads and faces. The passenger was initially unresponsive, the complaint states.

Chang said Sullivan’s speech was slurred and his breath smelled of alcohol. Sullivan repeatedly asked for a lighter for his cigarette and claimed he did not know the name of his passenger, even though he referred to him by his first name and continuously apologized to him, according to the complaint.

The passenger had to be extracted from the vehicle and was taken by ambulance to Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, then flown by helicopter to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa.

Field sobriety tests were not conducted because of Sullivan’s “agitated behavior,” but a sample of his blood was drawn, the complaint states. 

Although the legal threshold for intoxication is a blood alcohol level of .08, Sullivan is subject to .02 limit because of his prior drunken driving convictions.

According to court records, he was convicted of operating while intoxicated four times between 1990 and 2023 in Ozaukee and Washington counties.

During last week’s hearing, Gerol made Sullivan eligible for the substance abuse earned-release program, which allows nonviolent offenders to reduce their time behind bars through programming and treatment, after he serves the 2-1/2 years of his prison sentence.