Adah man sentenced to prison for fatal 2015 police chase crash
An Adah man was sentenced to 33 months to 63 months in prison Friday for leading police on a chase that led to the death of a 66-year-old woman in 2015.
Jonathan Michael Switch, 26, fled state police Oct. 23, 2015 while driving on a DUI-suspended license, reaching speeds of 70 to 80 miles per hour. He swerved around Bendetta Miller’s car as she waited to turn left from Bute Road onto Oliver Road in North Union Township. When she turned left, her car was hit by a pursuing state police vehicle. Miller died the next day.
“The decisions I made that day, I will never be able to do anything to take it back,” Switch said, reading a prepared statement.
He apologized to the family and accepted responsibility, saying he regrets Miller paid “the ultimate price” for his actions. Switch said he prays her family can one day forgive and return to normalcy. His statement prompted tears from Miller’s family.
He was sentenced within the standard range for homicide by vehicle and aggravated assault, with time running consecutively. The sentence also includes a 90-day mandatory minimum sentence for driving under a DUI-suspended license.
Switch pleaded guilty to those charges May 5, in addition to fleeing or attempting to elude officers, accident involving death, recklessly endangering another person and various traffic violations. Charges of criminal homicide and a second fleeing or eluding count were dropped.
Assistant District Attorney William Martin asked Fayette County Judge Steve P. Leskinen for a 10- to 20-year sentence, asking all sentences run concurrently.
Leskinen agreed on concurrent sentences for homicide by vehicle and aggravated assault, because the aggravated assault charge was filed for a second victim, Trooper Scott Abbott, who suffered significant injuries in the crash. Martin said Abbott remains off duty for his injuries.
Switch’s attorney, Jack Connor, asked Leskinen to “consider the entirety of the circumstances” of the case, acknowledging his client was legally responsible for the death but emphasizing his vehicle did not hit Miller’s car.
“He didn’t even know it occurred until later in the day when they picked him up,” he said.
Leskinen contrasted the case with another fatal police chase crash in which he sentenced Christopher Anthony Kemp, 29, of Confluence to 10 to 20 years in prison last year. In that case, which happened less than two weeks earlier, Kemp was fleeing police when he struck and killed 22-year-old Erik Yannitelli of Farmington.
“He directly caused the death himself,” Leskinen said, adding it was not a chain of events that resulted in the death as in Switch’s case. “I think that’s an important distinction in these two cases.”
Leskinen said he hopes the sentence will deter other drivers from fleeing police, and give Switch time to reflect on his decisions.
“He’s either going to be a more responsible individual when he gets out, or he’s not,” he said.
Switch is currently serving a 2 1/2- to 5-year sentence stemming from two robbery convictions in 2013.