Father of teen driver in fatal SUV crash to be sentenced

A New York father was sentenced to 6½ to 16 years in state prison for allowing his underage, unlicensed teenage daughter to drive on the day she was involved in an accident in the Pocono Mountains that killed three Council Rock High School South boys almost a year ago.

“He basically gave his daughter a gun and put the bullets in it for her”, said Wilson Black, Digney’s uncle, as he entered court.

Michael Ware told reporters after his July guilty plea that he was “sorry, very sorry”.

“Neither I nor my daughter Julia meant any harm to anyone that night”, he said.

Prosecutors say Ware gave the keys of his Chevrolet Suburban to his daughter, who drove five friends to breakfast before losing control of the SUV and flipping it in Paupack Township. “This is, as he said, such a preventable crime that could have not caused such a catastrophe”.

Michael Ware, 54, pleaded guilty last month to three counts of involuntary manslaughter in Pennsylvania.

During the sentencing, relatives of the dead boys, who had waited almost a year for a resolution, held hands and closed their eyes.

Lisa Lesher, mother of Ryan Lesher, recounted how her son volunteered to work with special needs kids.

Ware was sentenced at the Wayne County Courthouse in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Ware’s attorney, Robert Reno, said the judge misread the intention of the letter and then inferred from it that his client lacked remorse, a claim the defense says is untrue. Outside court, he called the sentence “ridiculous” and said there would be an appeal. He had initially faced felony charges.

She hasn’t spoken to her father since the tragedy and “doesn’t stop thinking about it”, her attorney John Stieh told The Philadelphia Inquirer in May. Julia Ware had refused to incriminate her father, the judge said Thursday, and investigators did not learn of his involvement until one of the other passengers in the vehicle, a juvenile female, reported it.

Joseph Keffer, a father of Cullen Keffer, one of the victims, told Ware that he hated him.

“I’m satisfied the judge went over and above the recommended sentence”, he said.

Julia Ware has been ordered to serve indefinite probation and community service for her role in the crash.