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WILKES-BARRE — The Courtdale woman who pleaded guilty to killing her backseat passenger in a DUI wreck was sentenced to prison Friday.
Audrey Sutton, 22, was sentenced by Luzerne County Judge Thomas F. Burke Jr. to three to six years in a state prison for a count of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence.
She will also serve two years of probation for a count of homicide by vehicle after she is released from prison.
She received no credit for time served.
Sutton was ordered to pay $9,092 in total restitution to Edwardsville Police, the Luzerne County Coroner, Edwardsville Ambulance and Christa Michalek, the mother of her late victim.
More than $4,200 of the restitution money will be going to the victim’s family.
Sutton pleaded guilty in August.
She told police that she had been drinking and would likely have marijuana in her system after she crashed her car on Oct. 23 last year, court records show.
A blood test revealed that her blood-alcohol content was .197 percent, more than twice the .08 driving limit, and she also had amphetamines and Oxycodone in her system.
The wreck occurred while she was trying to round a corner on East Main Street in Edwardsville, striking a concrete stoop.
Casey Michalek, 21, of Kingston, was a passenger in the backseat. He was rushed to a hospital, where he died two days later as a result of multiple traumatic head injuries.
A passenger in the front seat was uninjured.
An employee at Rob’s Pub and Grub in Larksville, where Sutton was working, told police that Sutton got a free beer after getting off work. She put $20 on the table, proceeding to have several more alcoholic drinks with her boyfriend.
Sutton had six pints of beer that night, along with three shots, investigators believed, noting that she weighed less than 100 pounds.