The Cortland County Courthouse (Cortland Voice file photo)
Cortland County Court sentenced a Liverpool man to five years of probation and a $1,000 fine this week after a crash in Homer garnered his fourth drunken driving arrest, according to court documents.
Harold E. Mantor, Jr., was arrested in August 2018 for felony driving while intoxicated after he drove his sedan off West Road, across a sidewalk and onto the grass in front of Action Auto, near the intersection of Luker Road, according to court documents.
Mantor’s 1999 Mercedes-Benz 320 had significant front, right side damage, wrote Assistant District Attorney Jessica M. Weynant in her plea offer. Weynant noted his front license plate was found near a guard rail on Route 281 in Homer-- about two-and-a-half miles from Action Auto -- where it apparently came off after Mantor hit the earlier rail.
Mantor “...stumbled out of the motor vehicle…” and refused to submit to police sobriety and breath tests, Weynant writes.
This fourth arrest came a week after Mantor’s third DWI arrest in Salina, Onondaga County. Weynant wrote that in the Salina case, Mantor told police officers he was not drunk then tested at 0.22 percent blood-alcohol content. That is almost three times the legal limit.
Twice before Mantor was convicted of drunken driving, Weynant noted. On Dec. 9, 2015 in Schroeppel Town Court, Oswego County, Mantor was convicted of operating a vehicle with a blood-alcohol content at or above 0.08 percent. In 1992, Mantor was convicted of driving while ability impaired by alcohol in Liverpool Village Court. Both are misdemeanor convictions.
In addition to probation and fines, Mantor was also sentenced to a year-long driver’s license revocation and the installation of an ignition interlock device on his vehicle for a year. Weynant detailed in the plea offer the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office would likely offer Mantor a plea bargain that reduced his felony DWI in Salina to a misdemeanor with a sentence to run concurrently with Cortland County’s sentence. If Mantor had rejected the plea deal and was ultimately convicted in court, a sentence of state prison would have been sought, according to the plea deal.
