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HICKSVILLE TWP. -- Highway patrol troopers charged an Ohio man with his tenth operating under the influence lifetime offense over the weekend.

Ralph J. Gipple, 46, was arrested after crashing his vehicle into a ditch on Hicksville-Edgerton Road. When his car came to a rest, Gipple fled the scene on foot, only to be followed by a Defiance County K-9 officer to his mother's residence.

After treatment for minor injuries, Gipple was arrested for felony OVI and taken to the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio pending his initial appearance in Defiance Municipal Court.

A review of the suspect's driving record revealed seven prior OVI convictions in Ohio, one in Indiana and another in Florida. The current charge makes it his sixth OVI within the past 20 years, a felony in the state of Ohio.

Gipple is scheduled to appear in Defiance Municipal Court on Jan. 23.