18-year sentence recommended in fatal Marine Corps crash

June 19, 2012 at 9:30p.m.

WARREN

The prosecution says Donald P. Williams Jr. of Austintown should go to prison for 18 years for driving a semi truck while using a drug for which he had no prescription and crashing into a car, killing three Marine Corps recruits.

The defense says Williams, 46, of Bainbridge Avenue, has never been to prison before and had not been in trouble with the law for nine years before the March 31, 2010, fatal accident.

It happened on state Route 5 at the Burnett Street intersection just west of Warren.

The defense asks for a prison term of 61/2 years.

Williams pleaded guilty earlier to 10 charges, including three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, three counts of aggravated vehicular assault, three counts of vehicular assault, and one count of drug possession.

His sentencing in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court is set for 1:30 p.m. June 27 before Judge Andrew Logan.