The owner of a company who caused a tree removal accident has been denied an early release from prison, according to an article by the Akron Beacon Journal.

A Summit County, Ohio judge sentenced 28-year-old Cory Howard of Springfield, Ohio to 18 months in prison in July 2018. Howard filed a motion for an early release in January, but the request was denied.

Prosecutors say 83-year-old George Homa hired Howard’s company, Alternative Property Maintenance, to clean up debris after a storm in November 2017. Employees were cutting down a tree when it fell on Homa’s home, trapping him in his home beneath large branches

Homa was taken by medical helicopter to a nearby hospital and underwent three surgeries for his broken pelvis and shattered tibia.

Howard pleaded guilty on June 1 to theft from a person in a protected class, falsification, operating without a vendor’s license, failure to remit Ohio sales taxes and a vendor license violation.