By Jim Haley
Herald Writer
A man who lost a friend in a traffic accident in late 2000 also lost his freedom Monday when a judge sentenced him to prison for more than six and a half years.
Andrew Muriel Preuett, 27, of Lake Stevens, was taken directly from Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Bowden’s courtroom to the county jail.
He pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in the December 2000 traffic death of his close friend, Douglas Rogers, 25 of Snohomish.
Bowden said Preuett had plenty of prior warnings about drunken driving with two citations in the 1990s. He was convicted of one and took a deferred sentence and a attended a treatment program in the second. The second charge was later dismissed.
Nevertheless, Preuett driving drunk and causing the death of his friend "is more than just a failure to pay attention" to the two earlier citations, Bowden said.
Deputy prosecutor Joan Cavagnaro recommended the low end of the sentencing range, a total of 79 months in prison. Bowden said he didn’t give him more time in prison only because he had lost a friend and members of his friend’s family asked for leniency.
Preuett’s sentence was increased by a total of four years due to the fact that he had been convicted of drunken driving in 1994 and received the second drunken driving charge in 1996. Each prior offense added two years to his sentence.
Defense attorney Bill Jaquette argued that Preuett’s second charge should not have earned him an enhancement. That’s because Preuett received the deferred sentence, went through an alcohol treatment program and the citation was eventually dismissed.
Because it was dismissed, Jaquette said it was "unfair" for the citation to add two years to his sentence in the vehicular homicide case.
Cavagnaro said the Legislature intended for the dismissed drunken-driving charge to count now.
"Down the road he gets a vehicular homicide. Is it fair to hold him accountable for a prior" offense? "The state says ‘yes.’ " Cavagnaro said.
Bowden agreed.
He said Preuett could have avoided the two-year enhanced penalty by avoiding the vehicular homicide in the first place.
Preuett and Rogers had been in Rogers’ 1986 Toyota pickup truck on Dec. 2, 2000. Rogers had been the passenger, according to witnesses after the vehicle left Newberg Road.
The pickup failed to make a curve to the left and drove off the right side onto a grassy shoulder. It struck a power pole and then went down a small hill, through a wire fence and into a cluster of trees.
Rogers was thrown through the windshield and died at the scene.
Witnesses later helped Preuett out of the driver’s side of the truck, although he later told law officers he hadn’t been driving. He was hospitalized with head and abdominal injuries and a broken leg.
When his blood was analyzed nearly two hours after the accident, his blood alcohol reading was .14 percent, nearly twice the legal limit, according to court papers.
You can call Herald Writer Jim Haley at 425-339-3447 or send e-mail to haley@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
