ASHLAND — The Ashland County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man they described as an illegal immigrant from Honduras after a Tuesday night crash near Pleasant Hill Lake.
A man identified in Ashland Municipal Court records as Edwin Lozzano, 32, was housed March 5 in Ashland County Jail.
As of Thursday morning, however, federal government officials picked up Lozzano to transport him to a holding facility. Officials with the sheriff’s office said they did not know where he was taken.
Attempts by Ashland Source to reach a representative at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Brooklyn Heights, Ohio went unanswered.
Only two county jails in Ohio — Geauga County Jail and Seneca County Jail — contract with ICE to admit people suspected of being in the country illegally.
Lozzano faces two misdemeanor charges, obstructing official business and resisting arrest, according to court records.
Ashland Municipal Court Judge John Good set Lozzano’s bond at $7,500 on March 5, without a 10% stipulation.
Ashland County Sheriff Kurt Schneider addressed county commissioners Thursday about the situation.
“We did encounter some of our illegal immigrants on Tuesday evening,” Schneider said.
Schneider confirmed Lozzano’s brief stay at Ashland County Jail and that agents from ICE came to transport Lozzano to a holding facility on Thursday morning.
In an interview with Ashland Source, Schneider said he believed Lozzano is originally from Honduras and that he crossed the U.S. border illegally two years ago.
“Just be aware: they are around and we are dealing with it as best as we can,” he said.
Lozzano allegedly the driver in vehicle crash
Paul Kinney, a director of outdoor education for Camp Nuhop, said he looked outside his window around 9 p.m. and saw a red car had crashed into a tree. Kinney lives on the grounds, which are located along Township Road 2916 just south of Pleasant Hill Lake.
“Then I saw a couple people walking away from the car that crashed into a tree,” he said, adding they got into another black car and drove away.
Kinney said he went outside to investigate and noticed the car was a red Hyundai with Franklin County license plates. The glove compartment was open, and all the lights were still on.
“The front end was all smashed up,” he said. “The way it wound up against the tree, it was on a bank, like a hillside. They were lucky they didn’t flip the car over. They were probably going at a pretty good clip to come into the gate like that and then hit the tree.”
“It looked suspicious, so I called the sheriff,” Kinney said.
Before the black car exited Township Road 2916, which dead ends into Camp Nuhop, ACSO deputies were nearby. It was 9:07 p.m., according to a call log from the incident. They stopped the vehicle and encountered six people speaking Spanish.
ACSO Captain Don Simms said deputies heard conflicting stories from the six “Spanish-speaking” people in the car about who was driving the red Hyundai.
‘He began to pull away and resist’
“The person (Lozzano) that was first mentioned as the driver, he claimed he wasn’t driving,” Simms said, adding the lack of clarity led the deputy to attempt to detain Lozzano, which initiated a fight.
“(Lozzano) began to pull away and resist,” Simms said. “So they took him to the ground to gain some compliance. After that, they called for a squad to check for injuries.”
The incident report shows the fight started at 9:27 p.m. Deputies requested an ambulance at 9:28 p.m. and it arrived about three minutes after.
Deputies called for a translator, ACSO Deputy Chanel Pardo, at 9:35 p.m. He arrived at 10:52 p.m., according to the call log of the incident.
Simms said another ACSO deputy investigated the crash back at Camp Nuhop, but that the report was not completed as of Thursday morning. The call log from the incident states the crashed car was impounded.
Simms said the other five people, all listed in the incident log with addresses in Columbus, were released. Lozzano did not have an address listed.
“Some of them, if not all of them, are not in compliance with federal laws for being here in the country,” Simms said of the others involved in the incident.
Simms said ACSO deputies called ICE to report them.