AUGUSTA (AP) – A 20-year-old Gardiner man will spend three years in prison for being drunk when he drove his pickup truck through a stop sign, crashed into another car and killed a high school student.

Robert Greely apologized Friday to the family of the late Peter Thornton Jr. shortly before Kennebec County Superior Court Justice Joseph Jabar sentenced him to 15 years in prison for vehicular manslaughter, with all but three years suspended.

Jabar noted that Greely was young, had no criminal record and seemed to express real remorse. He also fined Greely $2,000 and ordered him to perform 300 hours of community service telling high school students and others about the accident and how it affected so many lives.

Greely was legally drunk and admitted smoking marijuana on July 28, 2003, the day he ran the stop sign and struck a vehicle driven by Thornton’s older sister, Tiffany.

She was badly injured, but has since recovered. Thornton, who was 17, would have been a junior at Gardiner Area High School.

Greely said he accepts responsibility for the crash and that he would be living from now on for Thornton and himself.

“Whenever I accomplish anything in life, I will be thinking of him,” Greely said.

He told the family, “I’m sorry and I beg your forgiveness.”

Before Greely’s apology, Thornton’s family and friends described how Thornton, known to most as “P.J.,” affected their lives.

Thornton’s mother, Sylvia, addressed the judge while wearing a sweatshirt imprinted with a photo of her son in his No. 35 football jersey. She said Peter’s younger brother wakes up screaming, and his little sister wants him back for the hugs and kisses he gave her.

She said eventually she will forgive Greely – “but not today.”

Attorneys for the state and for Greely earlier had agreed to a maximum sentence of 20 years, with a five-year maximum on what he would serve.

Thornton’s family asked that Greely serve the entire five years in prison.

Jabar, citing other vehicular manslaughter cases in Kennebec, Somerset, and Cumberland county, said every case is different.

AP-ES-04-10-04 1749EDT