Driver who killed bicyclist to serve 90 days in jail

By Stephen Hunt
The Salt Lake Tribune

Pedro Sosa-Avilias was sentenced Monday to 90 days in jail for hitting and killing a bicyclist two years ago in Salt Lake County.
If Sosa-Avilias had simply remained at the scene, he probably would not have been charged with any crime, asserted his defense attorney.
Instead, the 41-year-old restaurant waiter panicked and fled.
There is no direct evidence Sosa-Avilias was drinking the night of Sept. 20, 2006, and he has always denied driving drunk.
But two of Sosa-Avilias' co-workers told police the defendant appeared to be drunk when he dropped by the Cancun Cafe earlier that evening, and he was charged with third-degree felony automobile homicide.
Uncertainty about the alcohol issue resulted in a deal with prosecutors in which Sosa-Avilias pleaded guilty in 3rd District Court to a class A misdemeanor negligent homicide.
In addition to jail time, Judge Paul Maughan ordered 24 months probation, 100 hours of community service, a thinking errors class and $5,724 restitution.
Reading from a letter Sosa-Avilias plans to send to the victim's relatives in Africa, he expressed remorse and asked for forgiveness.
Defense attorney Kendall Peterson claimed Sosa-Avilias "sympathizes with the victim and the victim's family" because both are immigrants.
Bap was Sudanese, while Sosa-Avilias, now a legal permanent resident of the U.S., is from Mexico.
Peterson had asked the judge to impose home confinement rather than jail, based on Sosa-Avilias' history of being a responsible and productive member of the community.
But prosecutor Sandi Johnson expressed concern about Sosa-Avilias' claim that he stopped, got out, looked around and saw nothing after colliding with something on 3900 South just east of Highland Drive that shattered his windshield.
Sosa-Avilias' version of what occurred is contradicted by a driver going the other direction, who said that the driver who hit the cyclist kept driving without slowing or stopping.

- http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9949662

Tweet

Pin It