State Prison for DUI related homicide

By MATT MILLER, The Patriot-News

April 13, 2010, 3:07PM

A Cumberland County judge this afternoon imposed a 39-month-to-8-year state prison sentence on an Enola man who caused a drunken-driving crash that killed a 22-year-old Mechanicsburg-area man in August in East Pennsboro Township.

President Judge Kevin A. Hess imposed consecutive prison sentences in the homicide by vehicle and aggravated assault convictions of Richard W. Jones, 52, at the urging of Kelli Emrick, the girlfriend of crash victim Stuart Bingham Jr.

Afterward, Emrick, who was injured in the crash, said no penalty can compensate for the death of Bingham, “the most amazing person I’ve ever known.”

Bingham’s mother, Renee, said she hopes the crash that killed her son raises awareness of the consequences of drunken driving.

Jones, who pleaded guilty to the charges in January, said he has been praying for Bingham’s family. He said he is still trying to come to terms with what he did.

Police said Jones slammed into the car of Bingham and Emrick after running a red light at Wertzville Road and Center Street. Just before the crash he had collided with mailboxes and drove through yards, blowing a tire.

Bingham, an accounting student at Harrisburg Area Community College and a 2005 Cumberland Valley High School graduate, died at the scene as Emrick frantically phoned for help.

DUI on Mower Arrest

 Man on mower charged with DUI, fishing pole theft

ATHENS, Tenn. — An East Tennessee man driving a lawn mower in the road has been charged with DUI. Athens police said 30-year-old Jimmy Graham Jr. smelled like alcohol and failed a sobriety test Monday after an officer spotted him on the lawn mower. He told the officer he had consumed a beer and taken a stress reliever prescribed to him.

A jailer said Graham was in custody Tuesday and there was no record of him having a lawyer.

The Daily Post-Athenian in Athens reported that Graham was also charged with aggravated burglary and theft under $500.

A police report shows Graham told the officer he had stopped by a house to pick up some fishing poles. Police said the man who lives at the house where Graham had stopped on the mower told police the fishing poles were stolen from his garage.

—

Information from: The Daily Post-Athenian, http://dpa.xtn.net

DUI Charged Teenage Regrets Fatal Mistakes

WEST CHESTER — A Montgomery County teenager admitted Friday that by using marijuana prior to an East Coventry traffic crash he was complicit in the deaths of two friends.

Austin Ewers, 16, of Pottstown, was adjudicated delinquent — the Juvenile Court equivalent of being found guilty — on two felony counts of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, two counts of aggravated assault while DUI, two counts of recklessly endangering another person, a single count of DUI and related offenses.

Ewers apologized to the crash victims’ families. He is to be transferred from the Chester County detention facility where he has been held since his

January arrest to the Montgomery County Youth Center. Authorities there will hear his case within 20 days, and it is likely he will be placed in a detention facility afterward.  “He’s extremely remorseful over what occurred,” said Ewers’ attorney, after the hearing. “He’s wanted to express his feelings to the families for months now.”

The November crash on Route 724 claimed the lives of Michael Cantamaglia, 16, and Andrew Case, 17, both close friends of Ewers. The crash also injured three others: Kyle Hillegass, 15, and Dylan Kunrath, 17, both of Pottstown; and Garrett Sterner, 16, of Telford. All of the crash victims except Sterner were classmates at Pottsgrove High School.

The Chester County Justice Center courtroom was crowded with family members for Friday’s hearing. Wearing a gray sweater and striped blue shirt, Ewers hugged his youngest sister briefly after his mother, father and stepfather watched him enter his formal admission to the charges and Senior Judge Charles B. Smith ordered him taken to Montgomery County.

“I just want to say to all the people in the crash and the families involved that I am extremely sorry,” Ewers said to the judge. “I never wanted to kill my friends.”   According to Assistant District Attorney Renee Merion, who prosecuted the case, Ewers was “driving around … hanging out” in a 2005 Honda SUV with his five friends before the crash on Nov. 23, 2009.

At some point, they stopped the vehicle while Ewers and others in the car smoked marijuana. Ewers then got back behind the wheel, and the crash occurred less than an hour later, about 8:45 p.m.  Merion said Ewers lost control of the vehicle as it careened across the opposite lane of traffic and up an embankment, cartwheeled several times, then landed on top of an eastbound Nissan sedan driven by Latasha Jones, 22, of Pottstown, who suffered minor injuries.

Cantamaglia of Barto and Case of Lower Pottsgrove were pronounced dead at the scene.  When questioned, Ewers told police investigators that he had “blinked” just before losing control. DiFabio said that during his discussions with Ewers, his client could not recall many details of the crash and could not explain how he lost control of the vehicle.

Police who found Ewers trapped in the SUV said they could smell marijuana on his breath. Merion said a blood test later revealed the presence of marijuana sufficient to prove Ewers was incapable of safely operating a motor vehicle. She said East Coventry crash reconstruction officers found nothing wrong with the SUV or the road surface that would have contributed to the crash.

A standout soccer player at Pottsgrove High, Ewers boasted on his Facebook profile after the crash of looking forward to living a life of “women, weed and wiz” — a street name for laced marijuana — in 2010.  Smith noted the crash was among several in a short timespan that had claimed the lives of area teenagers.  “We lost six teenagers in 90 days, with these two people part of those numbers,” the judge said.

Smith also pointed to Allstate Insurance statistics that show 4,000 teenagers were killed in automobile crashed involving multiple teen passengers in 2008.  Unlike some other states, Pennsylvania lacks a law limiting how many teenagers can be in the same car without an adult driver or stipulating what times of day they can drive, Smith said.  “Please, somebody do something,” he exclaimed. “It’s crazy.”  Courtesy of Daily Local.

Learn more about DUI consequences and penalties by contacting an experienced dui attorney at Ciccarelli Lawyers.

PA State Trooper faces DUI Charges

A Pennsylvania State Police corporal, well known in law enforcement circles as an accident reconstruction expert, has waived his arraignment on charges he was driving drunk on Route 422 before crashing his Honda Accord while off-duty in December.

John Quigg Jr., 48, of Wyndmoor, waived his formal arraignment in Montgomery County Court and a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf to charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and a careless driving-related traffic violation in connection with a one-vehicle crash along Route 422 in Upper Merion in December 2009.

By waiving his arraignment, Quigg, who is represented by defense lawyer Timothy Woodward, did not have to appear before a judge for a formal reading of the charges lodged against him. Quigg remains free on bail pending his next court hearing.

“Corporal Quigg was going through a difficult time in his life. He made a decision that he deeply regrets,” Woodward said on Thursday.

The state Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the case. Woodward indicated he plans to request that Quigg be accepted into an Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, a special probationary program that allows first-time, non-violent offenders to clear their records after successfully completing a period of probation.

Quigg, according to Woodward, completed a 30-day alcohol rehabilitation program at a Berks facility.

“He’s continuing his rehabilitation on an outpatient basis,” Woodward added.

Court documents indicate an investigation of Quigg began about 8:50 p.m. Dec. 17 when a Collegeville woman who was driving westbound on Route 422 called police to report erratic driving by another driver traveling from Route 76 onto Route 422. The woman was following the gold 2000 Honda Accord sedan, court papers indicate.

The erratic driver, later identified as Quigg, was driving his vehicle well below the posted speed limit, “swerving back and forth between the right and left lanes and traveling in the center of the highway over the lane markers,” according to the criminal complaint.

At one point, Quigg’s vehicle stopped in the center of the westbound lanes, authorities alleged. After remaining there momentarily, the vehicle slowly traveled off the highway into the center median, rolled down a slight incline where its front end struck and “became wedged under the guide rail at that location,” according to the arrest affidavit filed by state police Corporal Marcus Gibbs of Troop K, Philadelphia barracks.

After the collision, and before police arrived, the Collegeville woman and an Upper Providence man in another car stopped to render assistance to Quigg.

“They both observed the defendant slumped over in the driver seat. The defendant was unresponsive to their presence and had an open bottle of what appeared to be an alcoholic beverage sitting between his legs,” Gibbs wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Police said the alcohol was identified as a 375ml bottle of vodka.

Quigg was transported by ambulance to Phoenixville Hospital where he submitted to a blood test. Court documents do not indicate what Quigg’s blood-alcohol content was determined to be.

In addition to the uncapped bottle of vodka, a bottle of a nutrient enriched water beverage, with the cap sealed, was also found inside Quigg’s vehicle, court papers indicate.