PHILADELPHIA, April 13 (UPI) -- A Philadelphia man was sentenced Tuesday to seven to 14 years in prison for running down and killing a visiting St. Louis baseball fan and injuring another.
Joseph Genovese, 20, of South Philadelphia in February pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and vehicular aggravated assault while intoxicated for killing Cindy Grassi, 53, and injuring Sandra Wacker, 36, on July 10, 2008, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The newspaper said the two women from Missouri, both elementary schoolteachers and longtime friends, were crossing Broad Street. Genovese stopped his vehicle at a red light in post-game traffic, then drove around two stopped cars, ran a red light and hit the women, the newspaper aid.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner said Genovese's handling of his red Lexus was equivalent to "firing a gun into a crowd," the report said.
"This was no accident, to get yourself so completely blasted so you are totally unfit to operate a motor vehicle," Lerner told Genovese, the Inquirer reported.
Lerner cited seven prior arrests and Genovese's admission to smoking marijuana after he was freed on bail and awaiting trial. "You didn't belong on the streets of Philadelphia with or without a car," Lerner said, the Inquirer reported.
The judge doubled Genovese's mandatory minimum sentence by consecutively running the charges involving each victim.
