Spruce Head man sentenced to nine months in fatal car crash

Jan. 22--ROCKLAND, Maine -- A 20-year-old Spruce Head man will serve nine months in jail for his role in a 2014 car crash that killed one woman and left another with life-altering injuries.

Samuel Simmons was sentenced Friday in Knox County Unified Court for one count each of manslaughter and driving to endanger. Justice Daniel Billings sentenced Simmons to 12 years in prison with all but nine months suspended. Simmons will be on probation for four years after his release from jail, and his motor vehicle license has been suspended for two years.

District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau said the fatality was not the result of an accident but the inevitable result of Simmons' actions.

"Every second he was on Route 1, he posed a risk to everyone," the prosecutor said.

Simmons was driving north on Route 1 in Warren at 7:30 a.m. March 20, 2014, when his 1997 GMC Sierra pickup truck crossed the centerline near the intersection of Western Road and struck head-on an oncoming 2003 Subaru Forester driven by Alison Low

Low, 38, died at the scene. Her 18-year-old son, Dustin Kimball of Warren, was seriously injured but recovered. Kimball's girlfriend, Olivia Blachet, was severely injured and spent more than five months at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Simmons admitted to police that he had smoked marijuana the night before. Tests done on Simmons found traces of marijuana and amphetamine his system. A witness reported Simmons' vehicle weaving on the road for a few miles leading up to where the crash occurred.

Blachet, who was pregnant at the time of the crash, was in court Friday but did not speak. Her father read a letter from Blachet in which she pointed out that the crash robbed her of the opportunity to bond with her daughter when she was born.

She wrote that she had to relearn how to do everything including walking, talking and feeding herself. She has lost much of the use of her left arm and leg, Blachet wrote.

Family members sought a longer sentence.

Justice Billings stressed that the basic sentence is 12 years and that if Simmons commits any additional offenses, he will serve a lot more time than the nine months. Simmons will report to the Knox County Jail on Jan. 29 to begin his sentence.

Samuel Simmons pleaded no contest in December. The no contest plea resulted in a conviction, the same as if he had pleaded guilty, but allowed him to contest the allegation in what was then a pending civil lawsuit by Low's family.

Low's family settled for $1.1 million a few weeks after Simmons entered his no contest plea.

Last year, Blachet, now 19, received a $5 million judgment in a civil suit against Simmons for negligence.

Simmons did not have motor vehicle insurance, however, and it has not been made clear how either of the judgments might be collected.

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