Sheriff Condemns Law Enforcement Failures After Nurse Injured in Drunk Driving Crash
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones has publicly criticized other law enforcement agencies for repeatedly releasing an undocumented immigrant with multiple DUI arrests who recently caused a serious head-on collision. Johen Perez-Ventura, a 27-year-old Guatemalan national, allegedly crashed into Courtney Steinmetz, a nurse and volunteer cheerleading coach, leaving her with devastating injuries including spinal damage, a broken wrist, and a broken ankle. The incident occurred on November 20 along Route 747 in Liberty Township, Ohio, and has reignited debate about how law enforcement agencies handle cases involving undocumented immigrants with criminal histories.
According to Sheriff Jones, Perez-Ventura’s history with U.S. law enforcement began in 2019 when he was first caught crossing the Texas border and subsequently deported to Guatemala. However, he returned to the United States and accumulated a troubling record: an assault charge in Cincinnati in 2023, followed by a drunk driving arrest in Westchester that same year. Most alarmingly, Perez-Ventura was arrested twice more for drunk driving in 2024 alone. After each of these incidents, he was released back into the community rather than being held for immigration authorities. “This low-life piece of s— named Johen, who has been arrested [four times] for DUIs… had alcohol in the car, had to be cut out of the car, [went] to the hospital,” Jones stated in an emotional Facebook video. “You know who pays for that. We do… It’s not his first time… He’s used to this.”
The sheriff’s frustration extended beyond just Perez-Ventura’s repeated offenses to the systemic failures that allowed him to remain free despite his growing rap sheet. Jones suggested that other agencies may have deliberately avoided sending Perez-Ventura to the Butler County jail because they knew he would likely face deportation proceedings there. He also noted that Perez-Ventura had been driving without a license and may have presented fake identification to officers in previous encounters. After the collision with Steinmetz, Perez-Ventura allegedly tried to avoid responsibility by claiming through an interpreter that he wasn’t driving, because he was already on probation for one of his prior offenses. Now he faces charges of aggravated vehicular assault, driving without a license, and obstruction of justice.
The human cost of these systemic failures is painfully embodied in Courtney Steinmetz, whose promising career and active lifestyle have been abruptly derailed. Sheriff Jones visited her in the hospital and was moved by her condition, describing her as being in “serious pain” and facing a long recovery. “She’s 27, living her dream, working at the hospital as an RN, saving people’s lives. Now today, she’s lying in the hospital,” he said. “She’s not even out of bed yet. She’s going to be out of work for quite some time. She’ll probably have issues the rest of her life with her spine.” A GoFundMe campaign has been established to help Steinmetz with mounting medical bills, lost wages, and insurance deductibles—expenses made more burdensome by the fact that Perez-Ventura had no insurance. In a remarkable display of compassion despite her circumstances, Steinmetz reportedly expressed concern for the wellbeing of the driver who hit her, a sentiment that Sheriff Jones contrasted sharply with Perez-Ventura’s apparent attitude: “He doesn’t care. You look at his mug shot, he has a smirk on his face.”
The sheriff has promised an aggressive approach to Perez-Ventura’s case, vowing that “he won’t be deported again” until after serving time in an American prison. “He’ll get a cell until he goes to prison, then he can get deported when he’s a lot older,” Jones declared. His investigation won’t stop with Perez-Ventura either—the sheriff plans to pursue additional charges related to the crash and investigate businesses that sold him alcohol, people who drank with him, and anyone who provided him with vehicles despite his lack of a license. The sheriff’s passionate condemnation reflects his belief that the entire situation was preventable: “I have no sympathy. If he had been deported and stayed deported the first time, we wouldn’t be going through this.”
This case isn’t isolated in Butler County, where the sheriff’s office reports that nearly half a dozen undocumented immigrants have recently been arrested on charges ranging from sex crimes and assault to DUI and drug offenses. The incident adds to ongoing national debates about immigration enforcement policies, the coordination between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, and the balance between compassion and public safety. For Courtney Steinmetz, these policy debates have become painfully personal as she faces a long and uncertain recovery path, while for Sheriff Jones, the case represents a clear example of a system that failed to protect a valuable community member from a preventable tragedy.
