Lawsuit settled in death of Princeville woman

By NICK VLAHOS
For The Weekly Post

PEORIA – An out-of-court settlement was reached in a civil lawsuit on behalf of a Princeville-area woman killed in a two-vehicle crash last year.

The settlement of $300,000 was to be paid to the estate of Nevaeh Mitchell, according to documents filed April 30 in Peoria County Circuit Court. The lawsuit her estate filed against the other driver, Levi Dietz, was dismissed with prejudice. That means the case is closed permanently and cannot be refiled.

Mitchell, 18, died May 4, 2024, when her vehicle collided head-on with Dietz’s vehicle on Orange Prairie Road north of War Memorial Drive in Peoria.

According to court documents, Mitchell’s estate was to receive $199,130.59 from the wrongful-death settlement. The remainder was to cover attorneys’ fees and expenses.

Mitchell’s attorney, Peoria-based Shaun Cusack, did not respond to a message from The Weekly Post. Neither did another Peoria-based attorney, Kevin Sullivan, who represented Dietz last November in a criminal case related to the fatal collision.

At that time, Cusack and Sullivan suggested legal action against Peoria municipal government was possible, because lighting along Orange Prairie Road was inadequate and defective and might have contributed to the accident.

Sullivan also said the civil lawsuit against Dietz might be headed for an out-of-court settlement with his insurance representative. That was immediately after Dietz pleaded guilty to driving the wrong way on a divided highway, a petty offense.

A former resident of Wyoming, Dietz was sentenced to pay about $1,200 in fines and fees and to complete 100 public-service hours by early May of this year.

Sullivan said Dietz was unfamiliar with Orange Prairie Road, which in the accident area is a four-lane divided highway. As Dietz was leaving an apartment complex the night of the crash, he turned south onto the road.

But Dietz headed south in the northbound lanes, not the southbound ones on the other side of the median. Mitchell, a Dunlap High School student, was driving north on her way home from work at a Peoria movie theater. Alcohol and medications were not deemed to be factors.