By Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun
Serial drunken driver Thomas Lee Meighan Jr. was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison for the fatal hit-and-run in 2009 of a Johns Hopkins University student described in court by friends and family as a promising young scientist who might have changed the world.
Meighan, 40, was given an additional nine-year-suspended sentence in connection with a similar hit-and-run that occurred several months previously, in July 2009. Five people were injured in Northwest Baltimore after he drunkenly slammed into their compact car before fleeing on foot. If he violates probation after his release from prison, he could be forced to serve the suspended term.
The combined sentence, which came after a guilty plea, is the first significant amount of prison time Meighan has received despite nine prior drinking-and-driving convictions going back to 1994. But it, too, was a compromise.
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https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-meighan-20110202,0,6239662.storyoldId.20110204105125873