DUI Convict Receives 13 Years for Death
A 25-year- old Plainsboro man has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for the death of an 88-year-old Monroe woman in an DUI Crash caused in October 2007.
According to prosecutors, the offender had a .161 blood-alcohol level and was driving 72 mph in a 45-mph zone when he caused the crash on Dey Road in Plainsboto. The offender pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, aggravated assault, two counts of assault by auto, driving while intoxicated and other charges. He faced about 50 years in prison had he been convicted at trial.
The offender injured a woman of Monroe and her caretaker, then 57. One of the victims died of her injuries in December 2007.
The two women were heading to the physician’s office in a 2000 Toyota Camry taxi driven for South River-based Kelly’s Car Service. The offender was initially involved in a minor accident on Dey Road near Woodland Drive in which his eastbound 2000 Mitsubishi Gallant rear-ended a 2006 Honda Pilot.
The offender left the scene of the first accident, speeding down Dey Road with the hood of his car up. He lost control of the Mitsubishi and veered into oncoming traffic.
“He was driving both blind and blind drunk,” Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Nicholas Sewitch told Judge Barbara Stolte in Superior Court, New Brunswick, on Tuesday.
The passenger side of the Mitsubishi slammed into the front of the westbound taxi. Grochowski’s car overturned and landed on its side.
Neither the offender nor the three passengers in his car were seriously injured. The taxi driver was treated and released. One of the female victims suffered multiple fractures and both lungs were punctured, Sewitch said.
“There’s no words, no sorries, no forgive-me’s that will take back the pain I caused,” the offender said. “I’m no punk, I’m no thug and would never willingly take another person’s life.”