A Columbus police detective has been criminally charged a little more than a year after he was identified by police as being a passenger in his personal vehicle that killed a woman in a hit-and-run crash on the city’s Northeast Side.
Detective Demetris A. Ortega, 50, of the city’s Northeast Side, was indicted Wednesday by a Franklin County grand jury on two charges stemming from the crash: failure to stop after an accident, which is a felony, as well as a misdemeanor count of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, a drug of abuse, or a combination of them.
The charges stem from an early morning April 20, 2022 crash in which 30-year-old Naimo Mahdi Abdirahman was hit and killed while crossing Morse Road in the area of Walford Street, police said. The woman had come to the U.S. from Somalia at age 11 and had become an American citizen.
Ortega, who has been with the Columbus Division of Police since 2002, was placed on “relieved of duty” status, — — which is essentially a paid suspension — following the crash, which occurred while he was off-duty.
Sources had previously told that Ortega was not driving at the time of the crash, but that the 2022 Kia Sorento identified as the vehicle involved in the crash was reportedly registered to him.
However, Franklin County prosecutors said Wednesday that Ortega was driving and failed to stop after the crash and left the scene. Through investigation, prosecutors say it was determined that Ortega had been drinking and was under the influence of alcohol at the time the crash occurred.
The case was presented to the Franklin County grand jury, which heard testimony that detectices investigating the fatal crash were not able to conclusively identify Abdirahman’s location at the time of the crash due to a lack of witnesses or video as well as physical evidence from the scene.
Detectives also were “unable to determine to any degree of certainty that Detective Ortega was at fault in causing the crash, which is an essential element of a charge of aggravated vehicular homicide or vehicular homicide,” the prosecutor’s office said.Columbus police responded around 2:40 a.m. to a report that Abdirahman was struck by an eastbound vehicle while she was crossing Morse Road.
The driver of the vehicle, who was identified by police as a female, briefly stopped. A male passenger got out to check on the condition of Abdirahman. The male “appeared distraught” and reportedly told witnesses to call police, according to a media release from the Division of Police days after the crash.
After the man, identified as Ortega, got out of the car, the female driver continued eastbound on Morse Road before returning along a parallel service road in front of a commercial strip center to pick up the male passenger so that the pair could then flee the scene, police have said.
Abdirahman, was pronounced dead at the scene by medics at 2:48 a.m., police have said.
Ortega is scheduled to appear in court on May 10 for an arraignment, according to Franklin County Court records.
Columbus defense attorney Mark Collins, who is representing Ortega, told that Ortega will enter a plea of not guilty at the arraignment. He declined to comment further.