CINCINNATI — A man who, when he was 17 years old, hit and killed a University of Cincinnati student and sent another to the hospital entered a guilty plea on Monday and was sentenced to spend more than a decade in prison, according to court records.
On September 21, 2022, 18-year-old Cayden Turner and another 18-year-old UC student were crossing a street in a marked crosswalk near campus when then-17-year-old Michael Quarles sped through a red light and hit them. Turner was pronounced dead at the hospital, while the other 18-year-old was hospitalized with serious injuries.
Quarles fled the scene of the crash, but was arrested one week later.
The crash happened two weeks after Quarles cut off an ankle monitor he'd been assigned following a previous charge.
In October of 2021, he and three other juvenile suspects were arrested for crashing a stolen vehicle into a Boone County Sheriff's Deputy, who was then hospitalized with minor injuries.
Records show Quarles was convicted of four charges in that case, including first-degree complicity to assault, a felony, in April 2022. He was given probation.
Then, two months later in June of 2022, Quarles was charged in Hamilton County with having a loaded gun; as a result, Boone County charged him with a probation violation.
Hamilton County Juvenile Court officials allowed Quarles to turn himself in to Boone County authorities, because the assault conviction he'd received in Kentucky was entered into the Hamilton County system as just a misdemeanor.
Quarles was released by Hamilton County with an ankle monitor — and he did not turn himself in to Boone County authorities.
Instead, he cut his ankle monitor off and, two weeks later, was speeding through a red light in Clifton, hitting the two UC students in a crosswalk.
On Monday, Quarles pleaded guilty to four charges: aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, having weapons under disability and failure to stop after an accident.
He was sentenced to a total of 12 to 16 years in prison, though he was given time served credit for 620 days.
