Driver Sentenced to Rehabilitation Facility for Causing Crash that Killed Nazareth Teen

The 19-year-old Walnutport man who a 2009 crash that killed two friends and seriously injured three others has been sentenced to a juvenile facility until he is 21, according to a press release issued by Lehigh County District Attorney's office.

After hearing testimony from family and friends of Angelica Fox, 17, of Nazareth, and Russell Jacoby, 17, of Washington Township, Lehigh County, the two teens killed in the Sept. 26 crash, Judge Kelly L. Banach ordered the man be placed in Alternative Rehabilitation Communities, a residential facility in York.

The court will have jurisdiction over the man, who has not been identified because he was 17 at the time of the crash, until he is 21.  His placement will be reviewed every six months, according to the release.

The man was also ordered to complete 500 hours of community service; write apology letters to the victims who survived and to the families of those who did not; and make donations to memorial foundations that are established in the victims’ names.

During a Dec. 2010 hearing, the man surrendered his driver’s license.

According to police, the man was driving more than 80 mph when he tried to pass another vehicle in a no-passing zone at the crest of a long hill on Mountain Road in Heidelberg Township.  There were three other passengers in the vehicle driven by the man, including Fox and Jacoby.  All four occupants were ejected from the vehicle.

During today’s two-hour testimony, the man told the judge that he lost his two best friends that day, according to the release.

“They are both gone today because of my bad judgment,” he was quoted as saying in the press release.

Judge Banach told him he now has a responsibility to show the victims’ families that “you can be a better person than they believe you are.”