Background
On July 9, 2024, a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indicted Andrew Fusco on four counts arising from a large-scale motorcycle street takeover on Detroit Road in Cleveland. During the incident, a group of motorcyclists occupied multiple lanes of traffic. Fusco participated by stopping and then accelerating, which dragged and injured Cleveland Police Officer Petitt.
On February 20, 2025, Fusco pleaded guilty to amended Count 1 (vehicular assault under R.C. 2903.08(A)(2)(b), a fourth-degree felony) and Count 3 (failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer under R.C. 2921.331(B), a third-degree felony). Counts 2 and 4 were dismissed.
At sentencing on March 27, 2025, the trial court reviewed a presentence investigation report and considered Real Time Crime Camera and police body-camera video footage showing the incident. Officer Petitt provided a victim-impact statement regarding severe injuries. Fusco was sentenced to 18 months on Count 1 and 24 months on Count 3, ordered to run consecutively for an aggregate term of three and one-half years. The court noted this was Fusco’s fifth conviction for failing to comply with police orders.
The Court’s Holding
Fusco appealed, asserting a single assignment of error: that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to provide context for the video shown during sentencing, thereby prejudicing him. The court applied the two-pronged Strickland v. Washington standard, which requires a defendant to show both that counsel’s performance was deficient and that this deficiency prejudiced the defense.
The court held that Ohio law permits trial courts to consider all information relevant to an offense at sentencing, including video evidence, regardless of whether a defendant pleads to reduced charges. Here, the video directly substantiated the statutory elements of vehicular assault and failure to comply with police orders—both of which require serious physical harm or substantial risk thereof.
The court found that Fusco could not establish prejudice. Given his history of four prior failure-to-comply convictions, active bond violations while the case was pending, and R.C. 2921.331(D) mandating consecutive sentences, there was no reasonable probability that an objection or additional video context by counsel would have altered the consecutive sentencing framework. Accordingly, the court affirmed Fusco’s conviction and sentence.
Key Takeaways
- Trial courts may consider video evidence at sentencing regardless of whether a defendant pleads guilty to all or reduced charges.
- Ineffective assistance claims require proof of both deficient performance and resulting prejudice; failure on either prong defeats the claim.
- A defendant’s criminal history, particularly repeated convictions for the same offense, may justify consecutive sentencing even where injury resulted from momentary actions.
- Objections to video evidence at sentencing do not alter mandatory consecutive sentencing requirements when statutory predicate conditions are met.
Why It Matters
This decision affirms Ohio courts’ broad discretion to consider probative video evidence at sentencing without restriction to guilty-plea charges, reinforcing the evidentiary scope available to judges in assessing culpability and criminal history. The ruling protects video evidence as a truthful factual record independent of the specific charges to which a defendant admits guilt.
The opinion also clarifies that prior convictions for the same offense—here, Fusco’s five failures to comply with police orders—weigh heavily in justifying consecutive sentences under Ohio’s mandatory framework. Defense counsel cannot create prejudice through procedural objections where the underlying statutory predicate for consecutive sentencing is clearly established by the defendant’s record.