Citizen Staff Writer
SHERYL KORNMAN
skornman@tucsoncitizen.com
A man who collided with and killed a motorcyclist on June 21 while driving with a 0.210 percent blood-alcohol level was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to negligent homicide.
Robert William Becker, 39, initially was charged with second-degree murder.
To avoid a trial, he pleaded guilty last week to negligent homicide, felony endangerment and driving with a blood- alcohol concentration of 0.15 or higher, a misdemeanor.
A driver is presumed impaired at 0.08 or higher in Arizona.
Becker was driving north on Flowing Wells Road when he turned west in front of Alan Echols, who was riding his motorcycle south on Flowing Wells, authorities said. Echols died at the scene.
The partially mitigated sentence was based on recommendations from the county’s Pretrial Services. Becker has no prior felonies, was genuinely remorseful and had begun to rehabilitate himself.
On the DUI charge, Superior Court Judge Edgar Acuña sentenced him to 33 days of incarceration, equal to the period he served in jail before he was released to Pretrial Services.
He was sentenced to five years in prison with consecutive community supervision on the negligent homicide charge.
On the endangerment charge, Becker got a suspended sentence of probation and he must take part in an aggravated DUI program for three years after completing his prison sentence.