From: cortesi@informix.com (David Cortesi)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc
Subject: two years for Anolik hit-and-run
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:58:29 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

[The following well-written and complete coverage of the
 Anolik hit-and-run case appears only in the mid-Peninsula
 edition of the San Jose CA. Mercury News.  Although it
 isn't usually good netiquette to repost newspaper stories,
 I thought this one has a small enough circulation and wide
 enough interest to be worth posting.]


Driver who hit cyclist gets 2-year term

by S.L. Wykes, Mercury News Staff Writer

A 19-year-old Redwood City man who hit a bicyclist with his car
and left him for dead was sentenced on Monday to two years in
state prison.

Duane William Wray pleaded no contest in August to a felony
hit-and-run charge, which has a maximum four-year term, after San
Mateo County Judge Aram Severian told him he would consider
letting him off with probation.

"I thought it was the most callous and extreme commission of a
crime like this I've ever encountered," said prosecutor Al
Serrato. "I would like to have seen (him get) more (time)."

Wray's victim, former world-class professional cyclist Mark
Anolik, appeared at the sentencing hearing in a wheelchair, still
recovering from the multiple injuries he suffered in the June 29
hit-and-run.

Anolik, 26, was riding home from Woodside to Los Gatos on Skyline
Boulevard at 9:30 p.m. when he was struck by a car that drifted 
across the road without its lights on. Three people riding with
Wray in the car later told California Highway Patrol
investigators that Wray had been demonstrating how the road
reflectors wouldn't work without them.

The group in the car heard the impact followed by Anolik's
scream. He suffered a compound fracture of his thigh, two breaks
of his shin, broken bones in his left foot and a ruptured spleen.
After initial surgery at Stanford University Medical Center, he
went into a coma for three days.

He appeared in court Monday, telling Severian there is no 
punishment Wray could get that would equal what he will have to
go through the rest of his life, Serrato said. Anolik faces more
surgery and therapy, Serrato said. Whether or not he will walk or
ride a bicycle again is unknown, Serrato said. "He strikes me as
a very positive, strong-willed person, and if anyone can do it,
he can."

Wray, although telling a probation officer he wishes he could
switch places with Anolik, has also maintained that his three
passengers "compelled him" to keep quiet about the hit-and-run,
Serrato said. Wray's three juvenile passengers were not charged,
Serrato said, because only the driver of a car involved in a
hit-and-run has any legal responsibility to call authorities.
Passengers must either assist or encourage flight or destruction
of evidence to become culpable.

The group returned to the accident site, saw Anolik lying on the
ground, but still did not call for help. Later, when Wray's car
broke down and he called for help, he again did not mention the
accident. A CHP investigator testified at Wray's preliminary
hearing that at one point Wray remarked that he had "Spandex and
meat" on his car.

Wray will serve his sentence at a California Youth Authority
facility.
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc