Man gets 5 years for DUI fatality
'06 crash killed Everett teen
By John C. Drake, Globe Staff | September 19, 2007
A Charlestown man was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison after a jury found him guilty of vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol in an Everett car crash that killed 16-year-old Krystyl Poirier in April 2006.
The five-year sentence is the minimum allowed under Melanie's Law, a series of toughened drunken-driving penalties that went into effect in October 2005. Yesterday's conviction was the second under the law in the state.
Before the law was adopted, Robert E. Getz, 29, could have received a sentence as short as one year.
Getz had a suspended license and a long record of speeding, at-fault accidents, and drunken-driving convictions when he consumed at least two "experimental rum drinks" and drove off in his wife's 2002 BMW to buy more liquor, prosecutors said.
On the way, he and a friend stopped off at the King Arthur's Lounge strip club in Chelsea, where Getz drank a vodka and Red Bull drink. Prosecutors said Getz then got back behind the wheel.
Getz had a blood alcohol content of .17, about twice the state's legal limit, when he drove the BMW head-on into the Saturn in which Poirier was a passenger on a connecter road between Santilli and Sweetser circles in Everett. Poirier was ejected through the Saturn's sunroof and was pinned under the car. She was pronounced dead at Whidden Memorial Hospital.
Christopher McFeely, who was driving the car Poirier was in, suffered fractures to his legs and a shattered pelvis.
Getz's passenger and two occupants of a Toyota Camry, which the BMW also struck in the crash, were injured.
After deliberating for about five hours over two days, a Middlesex Superior Court jury returned guilty verdicts on all five charges: manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol; motor vehicle homicide; operating under the influence; operating under the influence causing serious bodily injury; and operating a motor vehicle after having his license suspended. The case was prosecuted by Elizabeth Keeley, a Middlesex assistant district attorney.
Superior Court Judge Hiller B. Zobel sentenced Getz to the minimum five years on the manslaughter conviction and put off sentencing on the remaining charges until Oct. 22.
"We don't expect that the verdict and sentence will ease the pain of the Poiriers," said Gerard T. Leone, the Middlesex district attorney. "We do hope a loud and clear message is sent. Our goal is to deter people from getting behind the wheel while impaired, and we will engage in strict enforcement of the laws and severe punishment."
In the first vehicular manslaughter sentence under Melanie's Law, 51-year-old Wayne Smith, a volunteer Swansea firefighter, was sentenced in June to five to seven years in prison in a Nov. 5, 2005, crash.
Smith had been drinking at a Fire Department fund-raiser before he drove into the wrong lane on Route 6 in Swansea, striking a police cruiser driven by Robert M. Cabral, 52, a Swansea police lieutenant. Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the crash, which killed Cabral, a father of two.
John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com
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Krystal Poirier "s court case --- man gets 5 years
Posted - 09/19/2007 : 09:20:56 AM
