Driver gets prison term for hit and run
Andrea L. Glinski was sentenced this morning to a one-to-three-year state prison term for driving off after severely injuring two young women last March near Daemen College.
In pronouncing sentence, Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk denounced her for taking "the coward's way out" by leaving the scene after hitting the pedestrians.
Glinski, 31, of the Town of Tonawanda, who was immediately taken into custody, also was fined $2,160 on her Aug. 12 guilty plea to leaving the scene of a serious injury accident in the in the incident, which injured Amy E. Stewart and Rachel D. Baird.
During a two-hour sentencing proceeding before about 100 spectators -- including the two victims, their loved ones and friends -- Glinski told the judge she is "ashamed for what I did."
The accident happened early in the morning of March 7 on Main Street and Campus Drive in Amherst.
Stewart, 23, a Daemen College graduate now working on a graduate degree in special education, walks with a cane and has difficulty speaking properly. In her statement, read by her brother Michael, she said she considers Glinski "a self-centered coward" for driving off and leaving her victims "to die."
Baird, 22, a Syracuse resident who like Stewart faces permanent lifetime injuries from the accident, told the judge she still struggles "every day" from the injuries she suffered in the incident.
Baird; Michael Stewart, 27; and Annmarie Stewart and Robert Stewart, Amy's parents, all asked the judge to impose the maximum-allowable four-year state prison term on the plea deal to send a message that such reckless and irresponsible driving will not be tolerated.
Paul J. Cambria and Daniel M. Killelea, Glinski's attorneys, said they told their remorseful client, who is being sued by both the victims, not to contact them to express her remorse.
Glinski, who came to court with her parents, was handcuffed and taken to jail about 11:35 a.m.
Kelley A. Omel, chief of the Erie County district attorney's Vehicular Crimes Unit, said John "Jack" Pieri, the passenger in Glinski's car, is being prosecuted in Amherst Town Court on misdemeanor criminal solicitation charges for urging her to drive off.
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