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Driver cleared of felony charges
By CARY DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2000 NEW PORT RICHEY -- A Pasco jury on Wednesday night convicted a 37-year-old man of a misdemeanor offense in connection with a 1997 hit-and-run crash that killed an elderly Port Richey woman as she was on her nightly walk around her neighborhood. The jury deliberated for nearly four hours before finding Marshall Ellgas guilty of culpable negligence, but acquitting him of the more serious charges of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident involving death. Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Judge William Webb sentenced Ellgas to a year in the county jail, but gave him credit for the eight months he has been in custody awaiting trial. Had he been convicted as charged, he faced a maximum of 18 years in prison. Prosecutors said Ellgas was driving his girlfriend's 1989 Geo Metro on Oct. 17, 1997, when the car struck Irene Montak, 83, on Zimmerman Road, killing her instantly. Instead of stopping, prosecutors said, Ellgas sped back to his girlfriend's house, where he had been living, and dismantled the car. They said he removed the dented hood and hid it in a bathroom in the garage, then smashed the windshield with a hammer and vacuumed up the broken glass. Three days later he fled to Wisconsin, where he was eventually arrested by investigators with the Florida Highway Patrol. Defense attorney Phil Cohen attacked the prosecution's case throughout the two-day trial, arguing that there was no credible evidence that Ellgas was driving the car that killed Montak. Cohen told jurors that they should find his client not guilty in Montak's death because the only witness to place Ellgas in the driver's seat during the crash had given opposite accounts of the crash over the past three years. Ellgas' girlfriend, Irene Molampy, testified at the trial that she was in the passenger's seat of the Geo beside Ellgas when the car stuck Montak on Zimmerman Road. But at a deposition before trial, Molampy said she was not in the car and denied any knowledge of the crime, Cohen said. "There is no evidence before you, at least nothing credible, that he was operating any vehicle, period," Cohen told jurors in his closing argument. But even with Molampy's credibility problems, Assistant State Attorney Richard Mensh said that an abundance of circumstantial evidence linked Ellgas to the crime. Why, Mensh asked, would Ellgas have fled the state without telling Molampy unless he had something to hide? Prosecutors also pointed to forensic tests that found Ellgas' palm print on the car hood hidden in Molampy's garage. And a witness testified that she saw Ellgas in the driver's seat of the Geo minutes before the fatal crash. "The totality of the evidence unerringly points to (Ellgas)," Mensh told jurors. The crash occurred at dusk, and prosecutors said Ellgas could have avoided Montak if he hadn't been drinking and had obeyed the 30 mph speed limit. Ellgas was traveling 45-60 mph, prosecutors said. Molampy said she and Ellgas were on their way to a local bar for a night of karaoke when the crash occurred. - Cary Davis covers courts in west Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6236. His e-mail address is cbdavis@sptimes.com.
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