Crime & Safety
Royal Oak Woman Pleads Guilty To 2nd Degree Murder
A plea deal for a Royal Oak woman was arranged Thursday with a Macomb County judge.
ROYAL OAK, MI — A 48-year-old Royal Oak woman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charge Thursday in connection with a June 2016 Eastpointe crash that killed Pavlos Frank Dion. Janell Bailey will be sentenced next month in Macomb County Circuit Court. The plea was entered as part of a deal with Judge Joseph Toia — over the objection of an assistant county prosecutor.
Bailey’s plea came Thursday, the day her trial was set to begin. Besides the second degree murder charge, the Royal Oak woman also pleaded to operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and/or a controlled substance causing death and operating a vehicle without a license causing death, both 15-year charges, according to a report in the Macomb Daily.
Bailey is expected to receive an 18-year prison term, the newspaper reported. The plea deal comes after Toia ruled last month that Bailey’s four prior drunken driving convictions could be introduced at her trial, the Macomb Daily reported.
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The deal was brokered between Toia and defense attorney Joe Kosmala. Assistant Macomb County Prosecutor Jean Cloud, the chief trial attorney, objected to the deal, according to the Macomb Daily.
Dion was killed when Bailey crashed a Dodge Caravan into the rear of a Chrysler Sebring driven by Dion, the newspaper reported. Dion was stopped at a traffic signal on northbound Gratiot Avenue near 10 Mile Road. Bailey didn’t brake and was traveling between 50 mph and 60 mph, the Macomb Daily reported.
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Bailey was convicted of drunken driving in 2009 in Pontiac, in 2007 in Detroit and 2006 in Woodhaven. Details on her fourth conviction were unavailable, the newspaper reported. Her driver’s license has been suspended or revoked more than two dozen times, including a revocation in 2009.
Bailey, who remains in the county jail on a $750,000 bond, is among several drivers who have been convicted of second-degree murder for a traffic incident in recent years in Macomb County.
Photo courtesy of the Macomb County Sheriff's Office
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