A Severn man who killed three people in a drunken-driving crash on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in January received one of the strongest sentences that local prosecutors could recall for an alcohol-related fatal collision.
Before a packed courtroom, Michael Anthony Reck, 27, was given yesterday the maximum prison sentence of 15 years, with five years of it suspended, was fined the maximum $15,000, and ordered to serve five years' probation, including 500 hours of community service.
In sharp remarks, Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Ronald A. Silkworth noted that Reck had a previous drunken-driving conviction from 1999 on his record.
The judge said that he wanted Reck to remember that three people sharing a limousine from Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Jan. 6 "died because of a reckless decision by you, sir."
Reck had spent that afternoon with friends, watching a Redskins football game and drinking - which is what he had been doing before his earlier drunken-driving conviction.
After that conviction, he completed a year of unsupervised probation in Prince George's County without having to complete an anti-alcohol program, said Assistant State's Attorney Shelly A. Stickell.
"You didn't take heed in that," Silkworth said.
He also told Stickell to compile an album of the 110 victim-impact letters given to the court as well as photos of the victims and ordered Reck to carry it with him at all times.
His probation will include alcohol treatment and installation in his vehicle of a device that does not let a motorist drive without blowing into a tube that checks his blood alcohol level.
Killed in the Jan. 6 crash were David W. Miller, 35, of Silver Spring, a senior writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education, as he returned from a conference; Adrian Guzman-Torres, 61, of Puerto Rico, a veterinarian employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and his wife, Aiko Vehara de Guzman, 64, who was accompanying her husband on his trip for meetings in Washington.
Miller's widow, Colleen, joined Stickell in urging Silkworth to impose a 15-year sentence but said later: "I don't relish this. I don't take joy in it."
In court, she tearfully described the terror of the night her husband was killed and the trauma of being left alone to raise the couple's two sons - one who was 2 1/2 at the time, and the other who was 11 weeks old.
"My biggest responsibility is to raise two little boys to be as wonderful men, scholars, citizens, husbands and fathers as their dad was," she testified.
About 70 relatives, friends and co-workers of Miller came to court, a few testifying and nearly all wearing buttons of assorted snapshots of Miller. They described him as having a quick wit and sharp mind, deeply devoted to his family.
Guzman family members spoke lovingly of the couple in October, when they went to court for Reck's trial, in which he pleaded guilty to three counts of homicide by automobile while under the influence of alcohol. Reck's blood alcohol level was .11 percent more than two hours after the crash, in which the Ford Explorer he was driving crossed the highway median and struck the limousine head-on. The legal limit in Maryland is .08 percent.
In court, with his relatives crying behind him and his voice hesitating, Reck apologized, saying he did not believe he was a murderer as some of the writers of the 110 victim-impact letters stated.
"I never thought that I would be a statistic," he said.
His lawyer, Melvin G. Bergman, urged the judge to follow state guidelines and to sentence Reck to no more than two years in prison.
Stickell said she was surprised that Silkworth imposed the maximum sentence, saying that judges tend not to give harsh sentences for drunken-driving deaths.