Thursday, February 12th, 2026
Man who fled Celina courthouse gets four years
By Abigail Miller
CELINA - A 33-year-old Celina man who fled from the Mercer County Courthouse during an October hearing was sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday.
Kyle R. Poplaski was sentenced to 36 months in prison on one count of escape, a third-degree felony; and 12 months on one count of failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, a fourth-degree felony, for a total sentence of 48 months in prison.
Poplaski was originally indicted Oct. 17 on one count of escape, a third-degree felony; assault, a first-degree misdemeanor; and resisting arrest, a second-degree felony.
The charges were amended as a part of a negotiated plea agreement entered in January.
The indictment originated from a previous case in which Poplaski was sentenced October of 2025. During that hearing, he was ordered to serve five years of community control sanctions and to undergo treatment at The WORTH Center in Lima on one count of failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, a fourth-degree felony.
The WORTH Center is a community-based correctional facility that is used as an alternative to the penal system. All defendants ordered to undergo treatment at the facility spend a brief amount of time at the county jail before being admitted.
However, after Mercer County Common Pleas Judge Matthew K. Fox remanded him into the custody of the sheriff's office, he reportedly pushed off a deputy attempting to handcuff him and ran out of the courtroom, Sheriff Doug Timmerman previously told The Daily Standard.
Once outside of the courtroom, Poplaski pushed down a woman in the courthouse rotunda on his way out, Timmerman said. He then ran down six flights of stairs where he was met at the bottom by another sheriff's deputy. The deputy deployed his Taser but was not successful in subduing Poplaski.
Poplaski continued out the south exit of the courthouse, where he was hit with a Taser a second time and finally arrested across the street near The Fountain Restaurant in Celina, Timmerman said.
After being placed in a deputy's cruiser, he complained of chest pains and exhibited "seizure-like activity" on the way to the county jail, Timmerman added.
He was transported to the Mercer County Community Hospital, discharged before 8 p.m. that same night, then taken to the Mercer County Adult Detention Facility.
He's being held at the county jail pending transfer to the custody of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.
