NEWTON FALLS, Ohio - Former Newton Falls Police Chief Gene Fixler is headed to trial later this summer to face a charge of dereliction of duty.

During a pretrial hearing Wednesday, the judge set a final pretrial hearing for August 11th before the case heads to trial on August 30th.

Fixler was charged in December of 2022 alongside Dallas Young. Young's charges were dismissed Wednesday, under Garrity rights that say officers cannot be pressured into incriminating themselves.

The charges stem from a December 2020 traffic stop, where Fixler encountered a possibly impaired driver. It happened outside Newton Falls jurisdiction, so Young, who was then a Trumbull County Deputy, responded to the scene.

Young cleared the man to drive without an arrest. Fixler claimed he was in his car making a phone call when Young released the man, but "agreed with this assessment" and said the man was "tired and not impaired."

About ten minutes later, the driver was involved in a fatal two car accident. A toxicology report found the driver had a significant amount of drugs in his system- enough to be lethal.

The report to council calls this "misfeasance" due to Fixler's inability to properly determine the man was under the influence of drugs prior to his fatal accident, despite being trained on opioid overdose.

At the time, Fixler told 21 News he believed the driver did drugs after he drove away.

Fixler also comes under fire in the report for hiring that same deputy in March 2021, the same day the deputy was terminated from the Trumbull County Sheriff's Office for reasons related to that same traffic stop.

The report calls this "willfully inappropriate action and poor reflection on the Newton Falls Police Department."

Under Ohio law, if convicted, Fixler could face up to 90 days in jail and fines up to $750.