View full sizePatricia and Charles GeigerCLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County prosecutors will not pursue charges against a prominent Lakewood businessman, or his wife, in connection with a hit-and-run accident that injured a Cleveland police officer.
Cleveland police officials, upon completing an investigation, requested that prosecutors withdraw the complaint against Charles Geiger, owner of Geiger's Clothing and Sports on Detroit Avenue and a former school board member, said Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason.
Prosecutors filed a motion to terminate charges today, Miday said.
A police spokesman said the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Geiger and his wife, Patricia, were arrested March 2 at their Kenneth Avenue home after Cleveland police Sgt. Tony Gorsek identified the Geigers' black SUV as the vehicle that struck him outside a Chester Avenue parking garage and fled the scene.
Gorsek, who was working a side job as a security officer, said he was directing traffic at the parking garage and told a driver to turn east out of the garage.
The driver followed Gorsek's instruction, but then immediately made an illegal U-turn, Gorsek said in the report. When the officer tried to stop the vehicle, it sped away, striking the officer and causing him to fall to the ground.
The officer, who was treated for minor injuries at MetroHealth Medical Center, said he caught the license plate number. And when he accompanied fellow officers to the Geigers' home, Gorsek identified Geiger as the driver and his wife as the passenger, according to the couple's attorney, William "Bud" Doyle.
Geiger was charged with felonious assault, obstructing justice, failure to comply with the order of a police officer, and possessing criminal tools. His wife was arrested and charged with obstructing justice.
Geiger was nowhere near the scene at the time of the incident, Doyle said. Video surveillance footage inside Melt Bar & Grilled restaurant in Lakewood showed Geiger having dinner with his daughter. And although Patricia Geiger and some friends had parked their SUV in the Chester Avenue garage during the time in question, surveillance video that captured the event revealed differences between the hit-and-run vehicle and the Geigers', Doyle said.
Doyle suggested that an altercation between a parking attendant and the true suspect earlier in the night over a reserved parking space led to the misidentification.
Patricia Geiger had parked her similar vehicle in a reserved space as well. And Doyle said he believes the officer recorded her license plate number, assuming it belonged to the other driver. When that vehicle struck the officer on its way out of the garage, the officer assumed it was the same SUV, Doyle said.
Geiger, however, left the garage through a different exit, and the friends who accompanied her each provided police with signed affidavits corroborating the story, Doyle said.