A 31-year-old man was sentenced Friday to serve four and a half years in prison for a car accident that seriously injured an off-duty police officer.
Santos Obidio Arita Najera, of Culpeper, pleaded guilty in December to charges of maiming another as a result of driving while intoxicated and felony hit and run for the March 15, 2008, crash.
According to police, Arita Najera was driving his 2004 Toyota Tacoma south on Nokesville Road near Piper Lane in the Manassas area when he crossed the solid double yellow lines and crashed into a 2006 Kawasaki motorcycle being driven by off-duty Prince William Police Lt. Phillip E. Harrover Jr.
Harrover was thrown from his motorcycle and hit a 2003 Jeep Wrangler.
Harrover, who survived the crash, was flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital with severe injuries, police said at the time.
Police said that Arita Najera tried to flee the scene of the accident, but other drivers on the road stopped him.
Police believe that Arita Najera, a Honduran national, was in the country illegally.
Speaking through a Spanish interpreter at his sentencing hearing Friday, Arita Najera said he was sorry for his ac-tions leading to and following the crash.
"May God have mercy," he said.
Prince William Circuit Court Judge William D. Hamblen sentenced him to a total of 10 years in prison, with five and a half years suspended on the two charges.
Hamblen said the Virginia voluntary sentencing guidelines, which recommended a sentenced between one and 180 days in jail, were "inappropriate in this case" in part because of the severity of the officer's injuries.
Hamblen said he based his sentence not on the fact that the person injured was a police officer, but on the fact that any person was injured.
"You afflicted injury on another human being," Hamblen said.
Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.
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