Pretrial release revoked for man in alleged DUI crash near Richmond that injured child

A Wisconsin man accused of crashing his vehicle last year near Richmond while drunk, injuring his 12-year-old passenger, violated pretrial release and was sent to the McHenry County jail Friday, official records show.

Bryan M. Johnston, 36, of Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, is charged with criminal neglect and abuse of a person with a disability, Class 3 felonies, along with aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol involving a crash injuring a child under the age of 16, child endangerment, failure to secure a child’s and failure to wear a seat belt, according to an indictment in the McHenry County court. According to authorities, the child has a disability and was not properly secured in the vehicle.

Class 3 felony conviction carry a prison sentence of five to 10 years in prison but also is probational.

The accident occurred Feb. 12, 2023. Initially, Johnston was only charged with misdemeanors and, two days later, he posted posted 10% of $20,000 bond and was released, court records show. That was before the Illinois SAFE-T Act became law and barred judges from setting cash bonds as a condition of pretrial release.

This year, on March 16, Johnston faced a new charge of endangering the life or health of a child, a Class A misdemeanor, court records show. This involved the same child, now 13, at a restaurant in the village of Lakewood. He allegedly had consumed “detox tea” and alcohol, “causing the alcohol to have extreme effects, while in the presence of his special needs child ... and became unconscious while being the sole care taker at a restaurant, causing the wellbeing of” the child to be endangered, according to the complaint.

On June 7, he was charged with driving under the influence and unlawful possession of marijuana as the driver of a motor vehicle, Class A misdemeanors, and then on June 21, he was charged with driving under the influence, a Class A misdemeanor, according to the criminal complaints.

In arguing his pretrial release be revoked, prosecutors wrote that “no condition or combination of conditions of release would prevent the defendant from being charged with a subsequent felony or class A misdemeanor.”

The original case alleges that at about 10:30 p.m. Feb. 12, 2023, Johnston was driving drunk with a child who has a disability that he did not properly buckle in with a seatbelt and was in a single vehicle crash in the 7800 block of Tryon Grove Road near Richmond. The crash caused “bodily harm to the child,” the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office said at the time.

The preliminary investigation indicated that the vehicle left the road and hit a ditch embankment, according to earlier reports.

Johnston and the child were taken to Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening and later was transferred to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago because of their age and injuries.