Man accused of killing Mentor police officer indicted on multiple charges

The Lake County grand jury on Aug. 17 filed a five-count indictment against the 24-year-old man accused of killing a Mentor police officer.

Brian A. Anthony is charged with second-degree aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of Patrolman Mathew Mazany, according to the Lake County Prosecutor’s Office.

Anthony is also charged with two counts of failing to stop after an accident, which constitutes as second- and third-degree felonies; first-degree misdemeanor operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, a drug of abuse or a combination of them; and minor misdemeanor failing to proceed with due caution, and/or failure to change lanes when approaching a stationary public safety vehicle displaying emergency lights, the indictment said.

Mazany, 41, was struck and killed on June 24, by a dark-colored Jeep that fled the scene.

Mazany was providing backup to another officer for a traffic stop on state Route 2 just east of state Route 306 about 1 a.m. After he was struck, he was transported to TriPoint Medical Center in Concord Township, where he was pronounced dead.

Based on some partial plate information obtained from the in-car camera, the Mentor Police Department was able to use technology and social media to check for similar vehicles in the Lake County area. While checking with a possible vehicle owner in Kirtland, police received a phone call from a citizen who noticed a Jeep with damage parked in the Mentor Lagoons Marina. The citizen also had seen the police department’s still photo of the vehicle.

Officers were able to determine that vehicle was the same one owned by the Kirtland resident. The resident advised that their son Anthony was using the vehicle and had not come home the previous night.

The father was contacted by his son, and his father – a retired firefighter from another community – encouraged him to turn himself in to the police at the marina. Anthony was taken into custody at 9:02 a.m. June 24.

He is a Lake Catholic graduate and with no felony convictions.

Anthony is being held in the Lake County Jail in lieu of a 10 percent, $750,000 bail set by the Lake County Common Pleas Court.

If convicted of the felonies alone, he faces up to 21 years behind bars.

Previously

>> Mentor Ptl. Mathew Mazany remembered

>> Hundreds turn out to pay their respects for Mathew Mazany

>> Mentor community mourns loss of fallen police officer Mathew Mazany