Markleyburg man gets probation for running motorcyclist off the road
A Markleysburg man was sentenced to two years of probation in Fayette County Court on Wednesday for his role in a 2012 truck-on-motorcycle crash that injured a Uniontown man who also happened to be related to him.
Timothy Rockwell, 46, was convicted of reckless endangerment earlier this month for running his nephew, who is also his stepson, Alan James Rockwell Jr., 37, off the two-lane highway when the two were traveling in the same direction along Route 51 near Bitner Road.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer M. Casini requested that President Judge John F. Wagner Jr. use the deadly weapon enhancement in determining what sentence to order, arguing that the truck Rockwell was driving was used as a deadly weapon.
Wagner declined to honor that request because, he explained, the jury was not given specific instructions regarding a finding that the truck was used as a deadly weapon.
Timothy Rockwell’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Charity Grimm-Krupa, began to ask the judge for a sentence of intermediate punishment before Wagner stopped her to say the court planned to order a sentence of probation.
“There’s no point of putting him in jail for 30 days,” said Wagner, “and there’s even less point in having him on electronic monitoring for 60 days.”
The jury acquitted Rockwell of more serious aggravated assault-related charges. An attempted homicide charge was dismissed part of the way through the two-day trial, after Grimm-Krupa successfully argued to Wagner that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to prove Timothy Rockwell had to specific intent to kill Alan Rockwell Jr.
Police initially accused Timothy Rockwell, who was driving a Ford Ranger, of intentionally side-swiping Alan Rockwell Jr.’s motorcycle, causing him to crash and break both femurs.
The men have two familial relationships because Kathleen Rockwell was married to Alan Rockwell Sr. many years ago, and they bore Alan Rockwell Jr.
The couple divorced, and Kathleen Rockwell married her ex-husband’s brother, Timothy Rockwell, the defendant.
They were married for 22 years, according to prior testimony, but separated in April 2010 because, Kathleen Rockwell testified, Timothy Rockwell was having an affair with Alan Rockwell Jr.’s wife.
The jury rejected the commonwealth’s argument that the crash was intentional in favor of the defense’s argument that Timothy Rockwell didn’t know who the motorcyclist was until after the crash and the fact that they were related was coincidental.