Distracted driver gets up to 7 years
Victim can't speak after brain injury
Chad Belleville is on trial for assault following a December 2010 traffic accident in Pittsfield that left Donald Flanders III with a traumatic brain injury; Wednesday, August 25, 2012.Purchase photo reprints at PhotoExtra »
Donald Flanders III (center) jokes with his mother, Tressa Flanders (right) and sister, emerald Flanders (left) during a recess in the trial of Chad Belleville at the Merrimack County Superior Courthouse; Wednesday, August 25, 2012. Belleville is on trial for assault following a December 2010 traffic accident in Pittsfield that left Donald Flanders III with a traumatic brain injury. He has not been able to speak since the accident, which tore him from vehicle.Purchase photo reprints at PhotoExtra »
"And now since I can barely sleep, I have little laughter in me, and my brother is not there to calm me down. And he is not there, he's not there to cheer me up when I'm sad anymore," she said before the man found guilty of causing the accident was sentenced for his crime. "I just wish my family was whole again."
Chad Belleville of Barnstead received the maximum sentence yesterday of 3½ to seven years in prison after being found guilty of second-degree assault in the Dec. 23, 2010, accident near the intersections of Routes 107 and 28. Prosecutors showed during trial at Merrimack County Superior Court that Belleville, now 29, was reading a text message while driving, taking his eyes off the road for so long that he drifted across a wide median lane before striking the Flanderses' Subaru.
Donald Flanders, who is now 19, was in court yesterday but unable to address Belleville; he hasn't spoken since the accident. The teenager who had dreams of joining the military and marrying his little sister's best friend now lives at a Greenfield rehabilitation center while his parents struggle to make their Effingham home handicapped accessible.
In asking for the maximum sentence yesterday, Deputy Merrimack County Attorney Catherine Ruffle told Judge James O'Neill that Belleville hasn't taken responsibility since the accident, erasing his phone's call and text history at the scene and then avoiding investigators for months as they attempted to interview him. When an officer tried to arrest Belleville at a friend's house, he allegedly bolted through a back door, Ruffle said.
The victim's father said he's looked for remorse from Belleville but has seen none.
"I pray you find a way to straighten your life out, somehow," said Donald Flanders, the victim's father. "I know what it's like to be down on skid row. I've been there myself. I've done what you're doing. But I had the strength to pull myself out of the gutter, to straighten my life out. There are ways of doing it but you've got to want to do it. No one else can do it for you."
Belleville nodded his head gently, his eyes lowered as he turned toward the victim's father. A few moments later, he apologized to the family, both for the crash and for not being able to reach out to them while his case was ongoing.
"My heart is broken for your family," said Belleville, who didn't testify in his own defense during the trial. "I have a son, and I have two little brothers and if anything happened to them, I don't know what I'd do."
He turned to the judge and said any sentence he could impose "pales in comparison with the punishment that's going through my head."
"I have to deal with the fact that I hurt a kid, and I'm sorry," he said as his voice quivered. "I am sorry from the bottom of my heart."
Belleville will begin serving time on the assault charge after he completes any sentences currently imposed against him. His lawyer, James Quay, said Belleville is being held at the Rockingham County jail and is likely to be released from there Sept. 9.
Quay asked for a sentence yesterday of no less than one year and no more than seven years. He said the maximum sentence for second-degree assault, a Class B felony, should be reserved for crimes where the consequence was intended, like a physical altercation.
The case is the county's first conviction involving texting while driving. (Lynn Dion of Franklin was found guilty of talking on her phone when her car struck and killed a pedestrian in 2009, a decision that is being appealed.)
"This is the time for us to send out the message, your honor, that distracted driving carries a serious risk," Ruffle said to O'Neill. "And if drivers choose to disregard that risk, resulting in situations such as this, those drivers will be held accountable for the consequences of their actions."
No comments:
Post a Comment