ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605200097
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS
SOURCE: Associated Press
A man who killed two college students and a recent college graduate while driving drunk on Interstate 64 was sentenced to 30 years in prison in what the prosecutor called a precedent-setting case.
Circuit Judge Robert P. Frank on Friday gave Raul Alcantara, 34, the maximum penalty of 60 years in prison for three counts of aggravated involuntary manslaughter.
Since Alcantara had pleaded guilty and had no criminal record, the judge suspended 30 years. But he told Alcantara he would pay for the three deaths with his own youth.
``You will be incarcerated until you are about 60 years old,'' Frank told Alcantara. ``Ten years to serve for each life you took does not reflect the loss of the lives you took. But like the lives you took, you will have forfeited the prime of your life.''
Alcantara, a Newport News resident, was driving a pickup truck the wrong way on I-64 last Aug. 20 when he slammed head-on into a car carrying four students. Those killed were Frank Engel, 21, a Yale University graduate from Yorktown; Ericka Bishop, 20, a Yale student from Williamsburg; and Brian Cothran, 22, a Radford University student from Forest.
The driver of the car, Kathleen Gilbreath, also a Yale student from Williamsburg, was injured. She was the only one wearing a seat belt.
Charlie Powell, the prosecutor who handled the case, said he has never heard of a longer sentence for drunken-driving deaths.
``I would surmise that this is rather precedent-setting,'' Powell said.
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB