Dettloff could see parole in 3 years

Tuesday, May 28, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

Mitchell Dettloff never met his father, who was killed in an automobile accident just two weeks before Dettloff was born.

Now Dettloff's three children with be without him because of a car accident, but not for the rest of their lives.

Dettloff, 37, was sentenced Friday to four to 10 years in prison for leaving the scene of a triple fatal accident April 22, 2001, that killed Brian Cooper, 30, Benjamin Barton, 8, and his mother, Holly Barton, 33. He was acquitted of charges of involuntary manslaughter or reckless driving.

The crash occurred after Dettloff's car collided with a pickup, sending it flipping across the median of U.S. 95, head-on into another car.

With time served in jail and under house arrest -- 395 days, with just 143 of it behind bars -- Dettloff could be paroled in about three years. The department of Parole and Probation and prosecutors sought a 30-year sentence with parole eligibility in 12 years.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure also ordered Dettloff to pay $76,662 in restitution and assessed him $6,000 in fines.

Bonaventure during the sentencing called Dettloff "a good man who made a horrible, tragic mistake." He talked about letters he received from Dettloff's family and former co-workers, who said Detloff had no prior criminal history and offered praise of his charity work as a manager of local restaurants.

One of the letters to the judge was from Dettloff's mother, Judy Dettloff, who said of the families of Barton and Cooper, "I can truly relate to the pain and sorrow they are going through right now," having endured the death of her husband in a car accident so close to giving birth to Mitchell.

James Barton, who was critically injured in the crash that killed his wife and son, said he understood the judge's sentence and said, "this is the start of closure for me."

Barton, 33, runs a plumbing business and is raising his three surviving children, ages 2 to 6, and a nephew.

Dettloff, shackled and wearing blue jail fatigues and orange tennis shoes, wept as he asked the victims' families for forgiveness.

"If there's anything I could do to change this, I would," he said.