Apr 15, 2016 3 min read

In a voice strained by emotion, George Jucha Sr. said his life hasn’t been the same since two state troopers knocked on the door of his home early one morning last summer to tell him his son was dead.

“I can’t pass the front of my house,” he said. “I can’t sleep. I sleep an hour at a time.”

Jucha, 75, of Scott Township, spoke Friday before Daniel Fleet Jr. was sentenced on charges in a drunk driving accident that killed his son, 50-year-old George Jucha Jr., last year.

Washington County Judge Michael J. Lucas sentenced Fleet, 26, of McDonald, to three to six months on a charge of reckless endangerment; three to six years in state prison on a charge of vehicular homicide; and five years of intermediate punishment on a charge of driving under the influence, with electronic monitoring for the first 90 days.

In exchange for guilty pleas on those charges, prosecutors agreed to drop other charges against Fleet.

George Jucha Jr. of Moon was CEO of the family’s recycling business, which relatives said has suffered since his death. He was active in Protect Our Parks, a coalition of environmental groups opposed to the fracking of public park land in Allegheny County.

He was also an adjunct professor of computer science at University of Pittsburgh.

Fleet told members of Jucha’s family and others who presented statements he “can’t describe how sorry I am that I’ve taken somebody’s life.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t look at you guys when you came up here and spoke. It’s hard enough to look at myself in the mirror,” he said. “I don’t if I can forgive myself.”

Police said Fleet was driving his truck the wrong way in the eastbound lane of Route 22 in Robinson Township when he struck George Jucha Jr.’s vehicle just after midnight June 7, 2015.

Two more vehicles were involved in secondary crashes after the head-on collision of Fleet’s truck with Jucha’s vehicle.

State police measured Fleet’s blood-alcohol content at 0.293 percent following the accident. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.

Christine Black read a statement in which she described the lasting impact of the collision, which knocked her unconscious. She said she suffered a concussion and other injuries.

Black struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and wonders why Jucha was killed and her life was spared, she said.

Black also read a statement by her friend, Lindsey Tedesco, who lives in the Harrisburg area.

Tedesco, who was driving, said she relives the trauma of the crash over and over, and is less physically active than she was before the accident.

“I haven’t slept a full night, partly because of the pain on my left side,” Black read from her friend’s statement.

Fleet will serve each part of his sentence consecutively. Credit for time served will be applied to his sentence on the endangerment charge; any remaining time will be applied to the vehicular homicide charge.

He’ll be eligible for boot camp after serving a year of the prison term for vehicular manslaughter, based on the determination of Department of Corrections.

Fleet was due to appear in Allegheny County court the day after the accident on DUI and careless driving charges.

Antoinette Jucha, 76, related to a November 2014 incident.

George Jr.’s mother, said following the first incident, Fleet shouldn’t have had the chance to get behind the wheel and kill her son.

“I will fight every day of my life to get these loopholes closed, and get these laws changed,” she said.