The family of a Fairfax County, Virginia, man killed by a hit-and-run driver says they're devastated after a judge dramatically reduced the driver's sentence on Friday.
In April, Guillermo Vasquez pleaded guilty to the hit-and-run crash that killed 28-year-old Joey Lanza outside his home in Lorton in 2020.
A judge gave Vasquez the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison with two years suspended on probation.
But a new attorney for Vasquez asked the judge to reconsider the sentence, calling it too harsh for the crime. The judge cut Vasquez's jail time in half to four years.
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"We were all shocked. It has crushed us. I thought when he was sentenced to the 10 years that I finally had peace in my life," Lanza's mother, Mitzi Nickle, told News4.
The crash happened in the daytime on Old Colchester Road. The force of the crash shattered the windshield of Vasquez’s Honda Prelude. Prosecutors say he kicked it out and kept going. He went to police two days later, after a photo taken after the crash was made public.
With his wife holding the phone, Vasquez told News4 on a video call from jail on Friday he believes he’s been unfairly portrayed as a killer.
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"I didn’t wake up that morning intentionally trying to kill somebody. I was coming home from somewhere. You know, I didn’t even know this person. I understand I made a mistake. … It was just the wrong time, wrong setting," he said.
Vasquez said he thought he hit an animal when the crash happened.
Nickle doesn’t believe his explanation.
"At 4, 4:30 in the afternoon, broad daylight with the sun shining down, you drive a mile. You kick out the windshield so you can see. You call a friend and say, 'I’m going to go to jail.' You don’t go to jail for hitting an animal. He knew what he did," she said.
Vasquez said he puts some of the blame for what happened on Lanza for stepping into the road. But he said the case will change him.
"I do want them to know that this is something that I think about, that I regret. That I wish I would have went back to at least make a phone call to at least let somebody know, 'Hey, there's a person in the road,'" he said.
Vasquez will still face two years of supervised probation when he's released from prison.
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