A man will serve more than five years in prison after pleading guilty in a 2016 crash that killed a Trafalgar man.
Devin Fleener, 22, Martinsville, pleaded guilty in Morgan County Circuit Court to a felony charge of driving while intoxicated causing death. A second charge of reckless homicide was dismissed, according to court records.
He was sentenced to nearly five-and-a-half years in prison, according to court records.
The crash killed Tommy Law, who was 47 at the time. Law was wearing a seat belt and traveling at 54 mph at the time of the crash, investigators said.
Fleener was charged with the two felony counts last year, after lab tests showed his blood-alcohol content at the time of the December 2016 accident was 0.13 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08 percent to be considered too intoxicated to drive. After the crash, investigators found a bottle of alcohol near Fleener, who had been ejected from his vehicle, police reports said.
Investigators also looked at the computers inside both vehicles and found Fleener was traveling about 70 mph around the time of the accident.
The accident happened on State Road 252 near Martinsville. Witnesses told police that Fleener came around a curve, overcorrected and crossed the center line, striking Law’s vehicle head-on. Before the crash, one witness told police Fleener’s car had been swerving, causing the other driver to slow down and back off from Fleener.
Law sustained multiple injuries in the crash, including rib and pelvic fractures and multiple internal wounds. An autopsy showed he died of blunt force trauma to his abdomen and chest. Lab tests done after his death showed no substances in his system, the report said.
Fleener also was seriously injured and required rehabilitation.
This is the second fatal crash Fleener has been involved in.
In 2014, when Fleener was 18, he was the driver in a crash that killed 38-year-old Brian Poe, also of Trafalgar, on County Road 300S, east of State Road 135. Fleener told police Poe had grabbed his head, causing him to run off the road and crash. Poe was ejected from the vehicle and was killed.
Fleener was arrested after a breath test showed he had alcohol in his system. He had a blood alcohol content of 0.039 percent, and was arrested because he was not old enough to drink alcohol, but his blood alcohol content was below the 0.08 percent limit where a person is considered intoxicated under state law.
Later that year, he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of minor consumption. He was sentenced to 180 days probation and 16 hours of community service.
