Truck driver sentenced to 3-to-9 years in NY crash; police say laptop was streaming porn

Porn-viewing trucker sentenced in fatal NY crash

BATAVIA, N.Y. — An Ohio truck driver whose laptop computer was streaming pornography when his rig hit a disabled car on the New York State Thruway has been sentenced to three-to-nine years in prison for killing the other driver.

Thomas Wallace of Brook Park, Ohio, pleaded guilty in May to second-degree manslaughter. Authorities say he’d slept no more than four of the 27 hours before the Dec. 12 crash that killed Julie Stratton, a 33-year-old mother of two.

The 45-year-old trucker tearfully apologized to the victim’s family at Wednesday’s sentencing. He had faced five to 15 years in prison.

Stratton hit a deer and her car was disabled in the passing lane shortly before Wallace’s tractor-trailer ran into it from behind in Pembroke, 20 miles east of Buffalo.

Information from: The Buffalo News, www.buffalonews.com