Tampa DUI Manslaughter Convict Seeking Reduced Sentence
Tampa, Florida — Seven years after a Tampa jury convicted him for the DUI crash that killed three men and injured another, he was back in court trying to get a new, lesser sentence.
After about four hours of testimony, a judge decided to revisit the re-sentencing in 60 days.
In 2003, a judge sentenced the man to life in prison, tacking on another five years because he took off from the law for 15 months before turning himself in.
“The accident was just that, it was an accident and I’m sorry for my part of it and their part of it,” He told the judge.
He won a request for a re-sentencing based on his claims he and his friends never got the chance to make pre-sentencing statements showing how remorseful he is for the crash, wondering if that would have made a difference.
His friends and family took the stand in his defense, paiting the picture of a man who went from “happy go lucky” to a somber and withdrawn person.
“He would become very dark, very withdrawn, overcome with grief,” described his friend, Diane Riley.
His mother told the judge, “This was a very different Joe, a very different person. This is a Joe who died and he’d never come back.”
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s detectives say he was drunk, twice the legal limit, and speeding when he hit the side of a car that was turning into an apartment complex on Sheldon Road.
Three men in that car died, a fourth survived.
But, some wonder just how remorseful he really was and is.
Attorneys for the state point out that in 2001, he threw a party before going on the run for 15 months and assuming the identity of a dead man.
“I made a mistake and I left,” he admitted in court today.
He turned himself in after seeing himself featured on America’s Most Wanted.
While he admits he made a mistake, he asked the judge to consider he was not the only one who made mistakes that night.
He pointed out that the other driver was also drunk and turned into his right of way.
He also disputed the state argument that he was speeding.
“I’m a good person. I need some understanding,” he told the judge.
But, his victims’ families say he deserves what he got the first time around… life in prison.
The sentence was their closure, the victims’ families told the judge.
“He murdered three young men,” said one of the victim’s fathers.
The judge ruled that the re-sentencing will be revisited in 60 days.
Have you been arrested for drunk driving in Tampa or elsewhere in Hillsborough County? If so, contact a Tampa DUI attorney at our firm to discuss your case, free of charge.
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