JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A central Missouri man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for a wrong-way, drunken driving crash that killed a woman in Cole County.
The Jefferson City News Tribune reports 29-year-old Dennis Leporin, of Columbia, had pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder and other charges. He was sentenced Wednesday.
Police said Leporin was driving without headlights in the eastbound lanes of westbound U.S. 54 when his pickup truck hit a car head-on the night of March 6, 2013. The collision killed the car’s driver, 19-year-old Camdenton resident.
Prosecutors noted in court that Leporin had a blood alcohol content of 2.5 – three times Missouri’s legal limit – when he was tested more than an hour after the crash.