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Bradenton Man Gets 30 Years For Deadly DUI Crash

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By HALLE STOCKTON

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: June 24, 2008

BRADENTON — One of Julia Earl's daughters constantly asks her grandparents where her mommy is. They tell her that mommy is sleeping.

But the little girl is nearly 4 years old and is starting to catch on that she will never see her mother again, said Robert Millhouse, Earl's father-in-law.

"My family is destroyed," Millhouse said in a Manatee County courtroom Monday. "Every day we cry. I'm a big man, and I don't have no business crying every day. This should not have happened."

In June 2007, a car wreck left three adults dead, eight children to deal with the death of a mother or a father, and countless family members coping with a searing loss.

On Monday, a judge told Terence Papoutsakis, 35, that he would pay for those lives and the toll those deaths have taken on the victims' families by spending 30 years in prison.

After his prison term, he will serve five years of probation.

Papoutsakis, of Bradenton, pleaded guilty in April to three counts of DUI manslaughter, admitting that he had downed about three alcoholic beverages at a bar in the early morning of June 16, 2007, before getting behind the wheel.

About 1:50 a.m. that day, Papoutsakis made a lethal mistake as he turned west, speeding, onto Sixth Avenue West, a one-way eastbound road. His vehicle crashed into the driver's side of a Ford driven by Tommy B. Lawrence.

Lawrence, 27, and passengers Earl, 32, and Stacy R. Lord, 27, were pronounced dead at the scene. Anthony W. Shoates, a passenger in Papoutsakis' vehicle, suffered a broken neck.

Blood drawn from Papoutsakis at the scene showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.112, above the 0.08 level at which Florida law presumes drivers are impaired.

Nearly 30 family members of the victims sat resolutely in the courtroom. Papoutsakis diverted eye contact, often to the ground, and clamped his eyes shut, occasionally using a tissue to wipe away tears.

Standing at a lectern so she could face Papoutsakis, Lawrence's sister, Tiffany, told him she forgave him.

"But I will never forget that you took my brother away from me," she said with a hoarse voice.

Lord's mother, Renee, took to the front of the room a letter listing her grievances, struggling through each word.

"I was told my daughter was dead when an officer from the sheriff's department came to my house at 5:30 a.m.," she said. "Every day I wake up at 5 and remember the worst day of my life."

Papoutsakis addressed the judge, apologizing repeatedly to the victims' families.

"I think I wish I could not wake up because I never wanted to do anything like this," he said.

During the 2 1/2-hour hearing, Papoutsakis' attorney argued that 30 years in prison would be excessive. He proposed that because Papoutsakis showed remorse, cooperated with police and did not flee in the 35-day lapse between the accident and his arrest, he should have a lesser sentence.

The judge also heard testimony that a head injury Papoutsakis suffered in 2003, in which he had a piece of his skull removed and never replaced, would put him in harm's way in prison.

Judge Debra Johnes Riva did not agree with the defense's reasons to lessen the sentence and immediately made her decision.

Papoutsakis' mother, Francis Wolfe, said she knew her son had to go to prison but did not expect 30 years.

"By the time he gets out, I'll be dead and buried," she said. "He won't have anyone."

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