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Driver who hurt 7 after Bills game pleads guilty

Published:December 4, 2009, 7:27 AM

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Updated: August 21, 2010, 3:24 AM

A Clarence man who had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana before driving his vehicle into several people after a Buffalo Bills game pleaded guilty Thursday to five felonies and misdemeanors.

Brandon W. McLean, 19, of Ledge Lane, faces about 25 years in prison, but State Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia said the sentence likely will be less than that.

McLean pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular assault, reckless endangerment, assault and driving while impaired by alcohol and drugs.

He was charged after he sped out of a Ralph Wilson Stadium parking lot in Orchard Park and injured four police officers and three pedestrians after the Oct. 11 game with the Cleveland Browns, which the Bills lost, 6-3.

The plea deal also covers an unrelated robbery charge that McLean faced after an earlier incident, according to Kelly A. Omel, chief of the Erie County district attorney’s Vehicular Crimes Unit.

Buscaglia revoked the $50,000 bail that McLean had been unable to post and sent him back to jail without bail pending sentencing. The judge told him that the prison term and fines he faces “may be something less than” the maximum combined amounts possible under his guilty plea.

Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas M. Van Wie was directing traffic at Abbott Road and Southwestern Boulevard when McLean struck him as he sped out of an Abbott Road parking lot and turned east onto Southwestern, then struck two pedestrians near California Road.

A 16-year-old Hamburg youth suffered a hand injury when he jumped into a ravine to get out of the way of McLean’s speeding Jeep Wrangler. Two Orchard Park police officers and a deputized stadium security officer were also injured before McLean ran into a telephone pole off Southwestern. All the injured were treated in a hospital and released.

McLean, who was driving a vehicle with Texas license plates, began fighting with lawmen after he crashed.

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