A Severn man who killed three people in a drunken-driving crash on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in January received one of the stiffest 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."

Silkworth 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.

Reck apologized and said that he did not believe he was a murderer. "I never thought that I would be a statistic," he said.