A Pennsylvania woman who was driving drunk and traveling the wrong way when she caused a deadly head-on crash on a northwestern New Jersey highway is now headed to state prison.
The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. reports that 23-year-old Amanda Rivera of Paradise Township received a six-year sentence on Friday. She had pleaded guilty last month to vehicular homicide and three counts of assault by auto stemming from the December 2013 crash.
Authorities have said Rivera drove eastbound in the westbound lanes of Interstate 80 in Hardwick Township for a few miles before she crashed into a car carrying four people.
A rear-seat passenger in the car, 25-year-old Jason Frey of Chestnuthill Township, Pennsylvania, was killed. Three others in that car were injured, as was Rivera.
"I feel like my soul has been ripped out of my body," Frey's mother, Athena Frey, said during the sentencing hearing. "I don't know if I'll ever feel happiness again."
Rivera tearfully apologized for her actions and the pain she caused Frey's family and his friends.
"I'm so ashamed," she said. "I know no matter how many times I say I'm sorry it will never bring back the life of Jason."
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Warren County prosecutors have said Rivera drove between three and five miles the wrong way on the highway, including driving the wrong way through a tollbooth.
