{"id":45519,"date":"2025-11-26T19:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/45519\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T19:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:35:07","slug":"drunk-driver-sentenced-to-4-10-years-in-prison-for-crash-that-killed-passenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/45519\/","title":{"rendered":"Drunk driver sentenced to 4-10 years in prison for crash that killed passenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

A drunk driver who lost control of his vehicle last winter in Bethlehem Township and crashed into a tree line, killing his passenger<\/a>, learned his sentence Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Northampton County Common Pleas Court Judge John Morganelli sentenced 32-year-old Randy D. Donato to four to 10 years in prison, according to the office of county District Attorney Stephen Baratta.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Township police responding to the crash Jan. 5 said they found two occupants in the vehicle that had run off the north side of William Penn Highway near Chipman Road. <\/p>\n

Donato\u2019s passenger, 35-year-old Nicole Danielle Guzman, was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the crash scene, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Donato was injured in the crash and taken to an area hospital, where township police interviewed him, according to a news release from the district attorney\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

Investigators determined Donato\u2019s blood-alcohol level was 0.208, the release states. Penalties begin for most drivers with a BAC of 0.08.<\/p>\n

Police also found a flask on Donato, as well as two beer-bottle caps and a 22-ounce bottle of Guinness inside his vehicle, Baratta\u2019s office said in the release Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Donato pleaded guilty Sept. 29 to homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence as well as Pennsylvania\u2019s highest-rate-of-alcohol DUI charge. <\/p>\n

Township police Investigator Adam Ebner led the department\u2019s probe into the crash. Deputy District Attorney Joseph Lupackino prosecuted the case. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drunk driver who lost control of his vehicle last winter in Bethlehem Township and crashed into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-45519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}