Cleveland man found guilty of stealing truck, crashing it into packed bar - cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio – A Cleveland man was found guilty Thursday of stealing a truck and driving it into a Westlake bar packed with people, badly injuring 13 of them. A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court jury found Brandon Pawlak, 27, guilty on 30 of the 32 counts he faced, including aggravated robbery, aggravated vehicular assault, failure to comply with the orders of a police officer, grand theft, and... Prosecutors argued throughout the trial that Pawlak stole one truck at 3 a. m. on Oct. 23, 2014 before stealing another around 8:30 p. m. later that day from the Sweetbriar Golf Club. Employees of the club noticed Pawlak and another man, Matthew Sowden, milling around the club's various trucks and called the police. Pawlak stole a white Ford F-250 pickup truck from the golf club and led police on a five-minute chase reaching speeds of 80 mph down Detroit Road when an officer threw stop sticks on the road. The truck careened through the bar's wall, pinning two bartenders behind the bar and badly injuring 11 patrons. He told the jury it was the most intense pain he'd ever felt in his life, and that he still wakes up every day in pain following several major reconstructive surgeries and months of rehabilitation. Source: www.cleveland.com
