From BuffaloNews.com
Anthony Thompson was sentenced Thursday to up to 15 years in prison for a crash last year that killed one of his passengers and severely injured an off-duty Buffalo police officer.
Thompson’s blood-alcohol content was at least twice the state’s legal limit, and he was traveling 68 mph in a 35 mph zone, at about 2:15 a.m. Feb. 25, 2011, when he ran a red light at Ferry and Main streets and plowed into a vehicle driven by off-duty police officer Gary D. Sengbusch, 31, prosecutors said.
Sengbusch, who spent months recovering at Erie County Medical Center, walked with a cane as he arrived for Thompson’s sentencing.
Sengbusch did not speak, but prosecutor Thomas Finnerty read aloud in the courtroom a letter that Sengbusch wrote to State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang.
“My life will never be the same, and I’ll never be the person I was or was going to be,” Sengbusch wrote. “My days of taking bad guys off the street are long gone.”
Sengbusch was driving home from a second job he had taken to save money to buy an engagement ring and a house. Now he’s unable to shower or dress himself, and his physical condition has put a strain on his fiancee, according to his letter.
His injuries also left him with severe depression, he said.
Sengbusch, who continues long-term rehabilitation, asked the judge to impose a “very strict sentence.”
The crash killed one of Thompson’s four passengers, 20-year-old Honey Ransom …MORE