A Philadelphia woman will spend years in prison for a drunken driving pickup crash along the Atlantic City Expressway that left a 4-year-old boy and a man dead.
Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury sentenced Roselyn Kornegay, now 47, to eight years in prison after she pleaded guilty last year to two counts of second-degree vehicular homicide for the June 20, 2014 morning wreck. She also pleaded guilty to drunk driving in the crash.
Police said that Kornegay was driving a white 1996 Ford F-250 pickup truck westbound near milepost 22.7 on the Expressway in Hamilton Township, New Jersey when she lost control and struck a guardrail, causing the vehicle to overturn.
The Philadelphia woman, two passengers inside the truck’s cab and three passengers who were riding on the truck bed, were all ejected from the vehicle, landing on the roadway.
The front seat passenger, 35-year-old James Dennis, died at the scene. Both Kornegay and the other front seat passenger, a 4-year-old boy named Syncere, were taken by helicopter to Cooper University Hospital. The child died from his injuries later that day.
Police determined that none of the victims were wearing a seat belt during the crash.
The passengers in the truck bed all suffered serious injuries and have since sued the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City for $30 million claiming the Trop told the family to leave after serving them alcohol.
“They need to own up they made a deadly mistake that cost my son his life,” said the boy's mother Shania Davis-Holder.
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Kornegay is already paying for the crash that prosecutors said was alcohol fueled. She must serve 85 percent of her sentence (at least six years, nine months and 24 days) before she will be eligible for three years of parole supervision.
