Brian Sullivan speaks at his sentencing hearing Dec. 30, 2020, in Winnebago County court. PC: Fox 11 Online
(WTAQ-WLUK) — A state appeals court Wednesday upheld Brian Sullivan’s conviction for a boating crash on Lake Winnebago which killed two sisters.
Sullivan was sentenced to three years in prison for the August 2018 crash which killed Lauren Laabs, 26, and Cassandra Laabs, 20. Sullivan’s boat collided with a boat driven by the girls’ father. Both women drowned after being thrown out of the boat.
On appeal, Sullivan challenged the convictions for homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. The appeals court rejected it in a 14-page decision.
“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the conviction, as we must, the jury could have reasonably rejected Sullivan’s trial description of his consumption activities, therefore giving no weight to the testimony of his expert. Relatedly, the jury could have concluded Sullivan was being truthful when he told police he stopped drinking at 6:45 p.m., and therefore concluded that his BAC was in line with Edwards’s testimony, approximately .12 to .17 at the time of the crash. On this record, we conclude the evidence was such that a reasonable jury could have concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Sullivan was intoxicated at the time of the crash,” the court wrote.
Additionally, “there was sufficient testimony from which the jury could conclude that the accident was avoidable had Sullivan been exercising due care and had he not been intoxicated. Sullivan was not entitled to a judgment of acquittal as a matter of law based on the (statutes for) affirmative defense,” the court said.
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