{"id":101569,"date":"2025-12-19T19:37:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T19:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/101569\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T19:37:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T19:37:15","slug":"sterling-heights-man-charged-in-fatal-commerce-township-crash-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/101569\/","title":{"rendered":"Sterling Heights man charged in fatal Commerce Township crash \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sterling Heights man was arraigned on a felony traffic charge after a Sept. 5 fatal crash in Commerce Township, according to Oakland County Sheriff officials.<\/p>\n

Waterford Township resident Matthew John Szakal, 30, died in the crash.<\/p>\n

Kevin Joseph Koldys, 51, is charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death. He remains in the Oakland County Jail after 52-1 District Court Magistrate Lewis Langham set a $25,000 bond. If convicted<\/a>, Koldys faces up to 15 years in prison and\/or a fine between $2,500 and $10,000, or both.<\/p>\n

Koldys was involved in a three-car crash on Pontiac Trail at Martin Parkway in Commerce Township.<\/p>\n

He was driving a 2021 Lexus that struck the 2017 Chevrolet Trax Szakal was driving. Koldys was northbound on M-5 when the
Lexus ran off the roadway and several hundred feet through tall grass and weeds before returning to the road, jumping the curb at a roundabout and hitting Szakal\u2019s Trax.<\/p>\n

The crash sent Szakal\u2019s vehicle careening into a 2021 Honda CRV. Szakal was wearing a seatbelt and pronounced dead at the scene. The CRV\u2019s driver, a 64-year-old Wixom woman, was also wearing a seatbelt and suffered minor injuries.<\/p>\n

Koldys suffered serious injuries. The sheriff\u2019s crash reconstruction investigators reported that excessive speed and alcohol use by Koldys appear to be factors in the crash.<\/p>\n

Koldys is scheduled to return to 52-1 District Court in Novi on Dec. 30 for a probable cause conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sterling Heights man was arraigned on a felony traffic charge after a Sept. 5 fatal crash in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8296,55355,55354,143,2482,145,144],"class_list":["post-101569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-fatal-crash","tag-kevin-koldys","tag-matthew-john-szakal","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county-sheriffs-office","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}