Sentencing for a Butler man who was found guilty of severely injuring a woman while driving drunk in 2019 has been delayed after a new witness reported that she saw a woman driving the vehicle.

Michael Joseph Hilliard, 41, was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in Butler County Common Pleas Court, but Judge Kelley Streib continued the sentencing after hearing from the witness Tuesday.

A jury found Hilliard guilty of aggravated assault while driving under the influence and his fourth DUI offense on May 26 at the conclusion of a two-day trial. Streib found him guilty of several summary traffic violations that also were filed by state police following the April 13, 2019, crash on Old Route 422 in Franklin Township.

According to trial testimony, Betty Jo McCandless-Meadows and Kenneth Kline, who were dating at the time, encountered Hilliard at the Longhorn Corral in Franklin Township on April 12. Hilliard and Kline are related through marriage.

The trio decided to drive to Hilliard’s home and then drive in one vehicle to Rock Ann Haven. McCandless-Meadows drove Hilliard’s Chevrolet Trailblazer, with Kline and Hilliard as passengers, to the bar.

McCandless-Meadows and Kline testified that Hilliard was driving when they left during the early morning hours of April 13, but Hilliard testified that he fell asleep in the backseat, and he doesn’t know who drove.

The new witness, Jamie Martin, contacted Hilliard’s attorney William Bercik, on June 18 and said she also was at Rock Ann Haven, and she left the same time Hilliard left, according to court documents.

She said she saw Hilliard get into the back seat, Kline get into the front passenger seat and a woman get into the driver’s seat. She said she was driving behind the Trailblazer from the bar to the corner of Benbrook Road and Greenwood Drive, and the woman was driving, according to court documents.

Streib ordered Bercik and Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope to file briefs in the next 17 days.

The SUV struck a ditch along old Route 422, rolled over, became airborne and came to rest on its wheels off the road in the Greenwood Cemetery.

According to court testimony, McCandless-Meadows and Hilliard were ejected from vehicle. Kline got out and knocked on the doors of several homes before he found someone to call 911. All three were flown to trauma hospitals in Pittsburgh.

McCandless-Meadows testified that she spent three months in a hospital followed by six months in a rehabilitation facility receiving treatment for her injuries. She spoke with a stutter that she said is the result of an injury to the frontal lobe of her brain. She said she didn’t stutter before the crash. Her injuries included brain swelling, two cranial fractures, 12 broken ribs, 10 broken vertebrae, a broken pelvis, a broken knee and punctures or lacerations to her heart, lung, stomach, spleen, liver, kidney and intestines, she said.

She said she uses oxygen to assist breathing and is on a list for a lung transplant; the discs in her back will have to be fused in two places; and her hip and knee will have to be replaced.

Hilliard said he suffered a broken back and ribs, and spent 10 days in the hospital.

Kline said he had a head injury and was limping when he went door to door seeking someone to call 911.