Story by the Associated Press; curated by Dave Urbanski
LEWISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Three young men apologized to their victim on
Thursday after a judge sentenced them to time behind bars for
throwing a rock from an interstate overpass, striking the woman in the head and causing her severe brain damage.
A judge ordered
Dylan Lahr, Tyler Porter and Keefer McGee
to serve at least 4½ years, 1 year and 10 months, and 11½ months for
the July 2014 attack on Interstate 80 in central Pennsylvania that
injured Sharon Budd.
Image source: YouTube/WEWS-TV
“I thought the judge would be just, and he was,” said Budd, a
middle school language arts teacher from Uniontown, Ohio, after the
hearing. “It’s hard to look at their faces and not feel bad for them.”
The minimum sentences are the earliest they could be
released from county jail or state prison. All three have much longer
maximum sentences and will be on probation for many years. They also
were ordered to pay restitution.
Lahr, 18, who was given credit for spending the past year behind
bars, was shackled around the waist as he asked Budd directly for
forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, Sharon,” he said. “I feel horrible for what has happened and for what you and your family had to go through.”
Porter said he was sorry and that he wished every day the attack had not occurred.
McGee drew a response from Union County District Attorney
Pete Johnson when he told Budd: “I shouldn’t have let my friends do what
they did.”
“Calling these things bad choices or mistakes, I think,
demeans what it is, which is the expression of criminal intent, the
criminal choice,” Johnson told Judge Michael Sholley. “And that deserves
punishment.”
Budd has already undergone seven surgeries after the rock
that crashed through the front windshield of her car destroyed much of
her skull, part of her brain and one eye. She and her husband were
passengers as their daughter drove them through Pennsylvania, on their
way to see a show in New York, when the attack occurred.
Budd’s husband, Randy, called the injuries “a lifelong sentence for Sharon.”
“We have four children,” Randy Budd told Sholley. “They
always went to Sharon. Now they come to me. Sharon always took care of
them. Now they take care of Sharon.”
A fourth man, Dylan’s brother Brett Lahr, 20, previously
began serving at least 18 months after pleading no contest to a
conspiracy count. Porter, 19, pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit
aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. Dylan Lahr pleaded
guilty to trespassing, agricultural vandalism and two counts of
aggravated assault. McGee, 18, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.
“It feels like a result that is appropriate,” Johnson, the
prosecutor, said afterward. “I can’t say, when you’re done with this
kind of thing, that anything feels like justice.”
Authorities say the rock-throwing culminated a day of
troublemaking that included shoplifting steaks, breaking a window in a
neighbor’s home and driving through a cornfield, causing damage. A truck
driver also reported damage from a rock in that spot around the same
time.
Dylan Lahr and Porter will serve their sentences in state
prison, where Brett Lahr is incarcerated. McGee was allowed work release
while serving his time in the county jail.
Randy Budd said he has begun a campaign to increase safety fencing on interstate overpasses.
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