New charge filed in wrong-way case

3/9/2012

A 37-year-old Springfield Township woman accused of driving the wrong way on I-475 and causing two minor accidents Wednesday night before being stopped in Maumee has been charged with drunken driving.

Lydia M. Jablonski appeared Friday in Maumee Municipal Court on one count of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs and a divided-highway violation. Jablonski's attorney, Peter Boyer, had asked for a one-week delay on Thursday, when she had been charged only with driving the wrong way on the highway. She was required to appear when the drunken-driving charge was added Thursday night.

Jablonski refused to take a breath test for alcohol after she was stopped.

About 10:40 p.m. Wednesday, the Bowling Green dispatch center for the Ohio State Highway Patrol received a call of a wrong-way driver in the southbound lanes of I-475 near State Rt. 25 in Wood County. A trooper drove onto I-475 southbound from the Salisbury Road ramp and observed a car northbound in the southbound lanes. The car then crossed the median and continued north on I-475, exiting the highway at Salisbury.

The trooper then pulled the driver over. She was released Wednesday night into the custody of her parents, said Lt. William Bowers, commander of the Toledo post of the state patrol.

Jablonski is due back in court April 10 for a pretrial hearing.