AUBURN — A Poland man charged in a fatal crash last summer on state Route 4 in Turner was sentenced to serve five years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Joshua A. Doughty, 39, was in Androscoggin County Superior Court where, in keeping with his plea agreement, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison with 13 years suspended.
After his release, he will be on probation for four years, during which he must have no alcohol or illegal drugs for which he can be searched and tested at random, Justice Harold Stewart II told Doughty.
Doughty will be barred from having any contact with the husband of Holly Woods, 59, of Peru, who died in the Aug. 23, 2022, crash.
Joshua A. Doughty of Poland appears in Androscoggin County Superior Court Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to manslaughter stemming from a 2022 crash in Turner. Seated at left is his attorney, Jesse James Ian Archer. Christopher Williams/Sun Journal
Doughty also must undergo substance abuse disorder evaluation and recommended treatment, Stewart ordered.
If Doughty were to violate any of the terms of his probation, he could be ordered to serve part or all of the suspended sentence.
A conviction for manslaughter is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Doughty pleaded guilty Wednesday to five other charges stemming from the crash.
He admitted to two charges of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, each one a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Doughty also pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges not related to the crash.
All of the sentences imposed by Justice Stewart, other than for the manslaughter charge, will be served during his five years in prison.
Assistant District Attorney Patricia Mador outlined the case Wednesday against Doughty.
She said Woods was traveling north on state Route 4 in a Kia sedan when an F-350 Ford pickup truck driven by Doughty traveling south crossed the centerline and collided head-on with Woods’ car, according to accident reconstruction records.
Doughty told deputies at the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office, who responded to the crash, that he had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Woods was pronounced dead at the scene; an autopsy found she had died of injuries from the crash, Mador said.
The crash occurred before noon near Scott’s Recreation and the intersection of state Route 219, deputies said.
The impact of the crash spun Woods’ car 180 degrees and knocked the engine out, which landed in the middle of the road, while the rest of the car ended up off the side of the road, Mador said.
She said Doughty had told deputies he hadn’t consumed alcohol or illegal drugs, but his blood test showed he had traces of alcohol, cocaine and methamphetamine in his system at the time of the crash.
Because the truck Doughty was driving belonged to a commercial road repair company, there was a front-facing camera in the truck that recorded the crash as well as earlier instances when the truck had crossed the centerline and the truck’s operation was “erratic,” Mador said.
Deputies also interviewed two witnesses who had seen Doughty’s truck cross the centerline before the crash, Mador said.
One of them told deputies that “a white truck with a wooden back . . . the truck moved to the left lane like he was going to pass a line of traffic. The next thing, car pieces were flying in all directions. The truck and the car looked like they were in a mist,” Mador said, quoting the witness.
That same video also showed a line of motorcyclists who took evasive action after the truck is seen “encroaching into their lane in a significant way,” Mador said.
Jesse James Ian Archer, Doughty’s attorney, told the judge that had the case gone to trial, he would have argued that Doughty wasn’t impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash.
Archer also said he would have argued prior to trial that Doughty hadn’t given informed consent to have his blood drawn for analysis.
At the time of the crash, Doughty had been returning from a work site in Strong where he had been operating heavy machinery. There were managers at that site who would have noticed had Doughty been impaired and removed him from the job, Archer said.
Archer said he and his client conducted a cost-benefit analysis of going to trial and decided it made more sense to reach a plea agreement given the evidence prosecutors could have presented at trial.
“Long story short, I do think this is reasonable,” he said.
The sentences on the charges to which Doughty pleaded guilty Wednesday include loss of license for varying periods of time.
The Department of Motor Vehicles would be made aware of the convictions, which could trigger additional suspension of Doughty’s driver’s license by the state, Stewart said.
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