A Portage man who Porter Police said was driving drunk when he turned into the path of a Michigan City man’s car on U.S. Highway 20 in August 2008, in a crash which killed the Michigan City man, has been sentenced to four years in the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC), the Porter County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said.

Brian L. Otto, 25, with a listed address of 2355 Hickory St., was sentenced on Thursday to the maximum prison term under a plea agreement reached in October, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Bennett told the Chesterton Tribune today.

Under the agreement, Otto pleaded guilty to operating while intoxicated-causing death, a Class C felony punishable by a term of two to eight years. Three other lesser-and-included felony counts and four misdemeanor counts were dismissed and the DOC term was capped at four years with an alternative sentence of community corrections, which would have provided for home detention and day-reporting.

But Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford opted instead to sentence Otto to the maximum DOC term under the agreement, Bennett said. He also sentenced Otto to two years of probation on his release from DOC and suspended his driver’s license for five years.

Otto will be eligible for release from DOC on serving two years, or half of his sentence.

According to police, at approximately 6:52 a.m. on Aug. 19, 2008, Otto was westbound on U.S. 20 in a Ford pickup truck when he attempted to turn left onto southbound Wagner Road and struck the driver’s side door of a Honda passenger car driven by Lance Stroobandt, 37, of Michigan City, and eastbound on U.S. 20.

Stroobandt was pronounced dead at the scene after a lengthy extrication by Porter firefighters. Police said that he sustained contusions to both lungs, severe trauma to his heart, laceration of the liver, and a broken neck. Cause of death: multiple blunt force trauma.

Otto subsequently advised police that he had been drinking with friends at the beach and at the time of the crash was headed for The Village in Porter for something to eat. Officer Tawni Komisarcik stated in her probable cause affidavit that, as Otto approached Wagner Road, a vehicle eastbound in the inside lane was slowing to turn left onto northbound Wagner Road and that Otto believed he could turn in front of it. But Otto did not see Stroobandt eastbound in the outside lane of U.S. 20, Komisarcik stated.

One full and one empty 16-ounce beer bottle were recovered from the back seat of Otto’s truck, Komisarcik stated. On an initial blood test conducted at 9:16 p.m. Otto registered a blood alcohol content of .12 percent and then on a second test conducted at 9:40 p.m. he registered a B.A.C. of .09 percent, Komisarcik stated.

Motorists in Indiana are considered legally intoxicated when they score a B.A.C. of .08 percent or higher.

Bennett noted that the plea agreement left the state exactly where it would have been if Otto had gone to trial and been convicted on the charge of OWI-causing death. Otto’s incentive in pleading guilty, Bennett explained, was this: the agreement gave him the opportunity to argue acceptance of responsibility as a mitigating factor in his bid for community corrections, an opportunity which he would not have had if he had gone to trial and been convicted.

Bennett said that Otto did appear on Thursday to express genuine remorse but that Bradford chose to impose the maximum prison term anyway.

Posted 12/18/2009